Not Michelin…. but the dreaded online review.

By Jay Patel, owner of Legare

Having worked in restaurants for over ten years, the same pressures have always been present. Whilst the landscape of restaurants has changed significantly, I can’t remember a single year where staffing hasn’t always been an issue and costs of goods haven’t always continued to rise, as has rent, rates and all the other variables that come alongside running a restaurant. But currently, it’s worse than ever. 

Now, with the prevalence of online reviews, pleasing customers seems to be getting more and more difficult alongside this increasingly fragile trading environment. Every other morning, I wake up and check my emails to see ‘x has left a review for Legare’ and it fills me with dread. My heart sinks before I open that email. I’m hoping for 5 stars, but quietly panicking that it’s going to be a 1 star. How did we get here? And more importantly, why do I care so much?

Back in May, Ravneet kindly invited me onto her podcast where we spoke about all things involved in running a restaurant. I mentioned that our reviews were almost always fantastic, with the odd exception here and there, and unlike my business partner Matt I struggled to deal with, and let go of, negative feedback. That’s still the case, and it’s something I need to work on. But increasingly I’m finding it even harder to understand the minute issues that customers raise, in combination with (what I believe) are their disproportionate ratings with stars.

Post pandemic, this seems to have become exponentially worse. I’ve asked my team for feedback and they unequivocally agree. Customers seem even less tolerant with the slightest issues. My own friends and family are open about their dissatisfaction with the current level of service they’re receiving in restaurants, and when I counter with all the issues we’re facing as an industry they don’t really seem to care or understand. Maybe it’s because they see the industry as a lesser profession, maybe it’s because they’ve been told the customer is always right (whoever invented that phrase needs to be locked up btw) or maybe it’s because they’re more conscious of their hard earned money now, and they expect the best. There’s no room for error.

It could also be that people who dine out regularly believe they have a vague understanding of how restaurants operate when in fact they simply don’t. Again, nearly everybody I know thinks they have great taste in food and wine, that they are brilliant cooks and most importantly… that they have great taste in restaurants. What I’ve come to realise is in most cases, they’re not the best cooks, they don’t really know much about wine, and they have very predictable tastes in restaurants. They just know what THEY like. Much in the same way, I believe I have great taste in music and film, but I wouldn’t know where to start with producing a beat or directing a film and I wouldn’t patronise someone that did it as a profession.

I’ll give you an example of a few recent reviews to illustrate my point.

A customer noted that they had an amazing experience with brilliant service and dishes packed full of flavour. The one negative was that the ‘nduja mayonnaise served with the squid fritti “lacked a spicy punch but was still tasty” – 4/5 stars. Look, 4 stars is still a great review, but to knock 20% off your rating because one component (a condiment no less) of a meal that had seven plates of food that you said were ‘packed full of flavour’ is unbalanced, and in a world where the only metric to judge a businesses quality on first impressions is by online reviews, these things can sway opinion.

A recent review gave 4/5 stars commenting that the pastas were delicious but flavours weren’t ‘mind blowing’. They ordered spaghetti with datterini tomatoes. What were they expecting? 

Another gave us a 2/5 review complaining about the £1 water added to the bill which we clearly state on the menu and the bill is for charity, and optional. They said the antipasti were great, and the mains were tasty too. But the £1 charge?! They said it was “a charge they were not expecting and unethical” which is somewhat ironic given the reason we add it to the bill. It’s also optional, so you could just ask for it to be removed.

One review knocked a star off for ‘clumsy staff who dropped a knife next to her table and made her jump’. Ultimately, the point is, these things genuinely affect us, both mentally and business-wise.  It’s an electronic form of WoM and people do care. But often, people only see the stars, they don’t always read the full review which is almost always more positive than negative. What’s more worrying is that we’re starting to see an increase in the frequency of these types of reviews where everything was great, but it wasn’t quite great enough.

The bigger issue might be that human nature tends to focus on the one negative, not the hundreds of positives. It’s the way we’ve been wired. Unless things don’t meet our absolutely flawless, unreasonably high standards, they don’t suffice. We see it in the outrageous expectations we set ourselves in our dating lives, or our careers and how much we earn. We don’t want very very good, because that would be the equivalent of us ‘settling’. We need excellence across all areas without exception, and it’s becoming an issue because it’s making us pessimistic, negative and unhappy. It’s making us less appreciative and far more critical of very small issues which override the bigger picture… which more often than not, is wholly positive. in short, it’s probably making us unhappier.

Let me make this clear: I’m not against feedback. I’d prefer if customers told us at the time when dining with us, so we could make it right there and then. If you’re not happy, let’s us rectify the situation. The last thing we want is customers coming to the restaurant and leaving unhappy. The interaction may be slightly awkward (mainly for the customer) at the time, but trust us, we’re used to dealing with these interactions, and we’ll happily make things better if we can. It’s really not a big deal. However, the online review after you’ve told us everything is great… that’s irritating. 

If something was horrifically bad, an email outlining what we got wrong would genuinely be very helpful because we could sit down as a team and debrief on what we can improve on. When we’ve received a bad review and I believe we got it completely wrong for those diners, that’s on us and we have to take the L and move on. We don’t always get it right, and when I have no response to a customer I just have to accept that we let people down that time and get better. We apologise and we move on. But critiquing every single detail of a dining experience and writing about it online just seems excessive.

I’ve been to countless restaurants where I’ve not enjoyed a particular dish or side dish, a wine or many other things, but the overall experience has been brilliant. Sometimes it’s not even the restaurant’s fault that aspects of the dinner haven’t been great. Sometimes it is. But the main thing is, I’ve also not felt the need to write about all of these negative points publicly. I don’t see a need to damage the reputation of a business just because things weren’t absolutely perfect. Who has the time? And in all honesty, is it really that important?

Legare is a fantastic, relaxed and delicious restaurant in an old warehouse space beneath Tower Bridge, on the charmingly cobbled Shad Thames. Their open kitchen serves a regularly changing menu of seasonal antipasti and pasta made daily by hand, whilst the wine list features natural and low-intervention bottles from exciting small Italian producers.

 

Founders Jay Patel and Matt Beardmore have extensive industry experience, with a stunning CV between them featuring Barrafina, Koya, Trullo and more. They now hold a Michelin Bib Gourmand – not that they’re worried, of course…!