You know -

“These tacos are okay for around here, but compared to Tacos in SoCal...”

is really just a different version of -

“If I were rating based on food alone, I’d give this place four or five stars. But because of [insert way less important thing here], it gets one...”

If the place you're comparing it to isn't available what difference does the second place make?

“I wanted to like this place, I really did...”

I love this bc they actually went in with the very best intentions and just couldn't fake the fact that they were disappointed.

“Clearly, the owner and his buddies have been on here writing all these positive reviews...”

I hate this one bc it forces me to, if even subconsciously, try to judge every review on whether it's legit or not.

The one that kills me is either

the whine about not getting things for free. Usually it's an ethnic restaurant, and they didn't get soup or rice or chips or something similar for free. "Other place gives it for free!" so everyone else should?

OR

the "they didn't make it right!" whine, where the way the person thinks is right is so wrong it hurts. My favorite was the person who went to a sushi place that didn't put crab salad in their california rolls. Not using white meat in deep fried chicken dishes (like General Whomever's or kara-age) is common one.

Oh, wait, there's also ethnic restaurants being judged by the most dumbed-down-for-white-people food. "I judge all Chinese restaurants by their egg rolls and fried rice." Or sushi rolls made with cream cheese, or chicken tikka masala. And don't get me started on people who order spicy food and then whine that it's too hot!

find one hair in the food or get their food made slightly inaccurately and then rate all categories the lowest score available

"The menu said no substitutions, but I asked anyway and the mean waitress said she wouldn't do it! One star!"

Whenever somebody rates all aspects of a product or service "one star" when they only have an issue with one of the aspects. It sends the message that they're a whiny, spoiled brat.

first time reviewer that is on a first name basis with the owner/manager and several employees that focuses on a situation that was outside of everyone's control.

...I had to wait for 3 hours to get a table right before the big game. Jim and Becky were seating their friends at a couple of reserved tables...

People that will give a low score just because of a silly little thing. I once read a review of one of my favorite mom & pop place. The reviewer complained that the waitress didn't put the lid on a to-go cup tightly & it spilled on her when she was in her car. Boo frecking hoo!
Also, I can't stand the ones that are written by snobs for plain, non trendy restaurants. Another person (for the same place) complained about the simple atmosphere.
Neither one of them mentioned the food. All the other reviewers love the food (catfish).

Not a restaurant review pet peeve, but an Amazon review one: When people rate the product with one star for something completely unrelated to the product, such as shipping. The worst one I've seen was a one star review on a TV, simply for the reason that it didn't have 3D capability.

I hate when people just comment "FAIL" or it sucked or something generic. Tell me why you didn't like it.

“I wanted to like this place, I really did...”

This one is just stupid to say. I mean, who goes to a restaurant wanting to hate it? Of course you wanted to like it. duh

I used to hang out on a foodie site with some really annoying types, so:

* All of the above, plus

* "The idiots who run this place have banned cameras. Clearly they don't understand the First Amendment."

The opposite of the foodie snob problem: People who go to a place with a specific food/method of cooking and then gripe about things that are inherent to that method.

Neapolitan pizza is cooked for something like 90 seconds in an insanely hot oven. To qualify as True Neapolitan Pizza, you have to have some char on the crust. Yet more than half of the reviewers to this place gripe about how THEIR pizza got burned, and the waiter wouldn't fix it for them.

When someone says they've been to the place dozens of times over the year/s and loved it but never wrote a review. Then they have one bad/not so good experience and they write a 1 star review.

dave bug wrote:The opposite of the foodie snob problem: People who go to a place with a specific food/method of cooking and then gripe about things that are inherent to that method.

Neapolitan pizza is cooked for something like 90 seconds in an insanely hot oven. To qualify as True Neapolitan Pizza, you have to have some char on the crust. Yet more than half of the reviewers to this place gripe about how THEIR pizza got burned, and the waiter wouldn't fix it for them.

I'm from Louisiana and went to visit a relative in New York City. He took me to a brick oven pizza place on Houston St.(pronounced HOW-ston, not HUE-ston - yeah... I know) called Aurtoros. When they brought it out, the edges and the bottom of the crust was almost burnt. But that's how they cook it! And it was great!

fuzzypeaches wrote:
Also, I can't stand the ones that are written by snobs for plain, non trendy restaurants. Another person (for the same place) complained about the simple atmosphere.
Neither one of them mentioned the food. All the other reviewers love the food (catfish).

What if I go to a trend place and complain about how terrible the food is? I realize these fusion food places are trendy, but they have no skill cooking any of the things they are trying to fuse together. ...apple slices in mashed potatoes. I like the thought, but try them before you serve them. It is just soggy, mushy apples in mashed potatoes... Great atmosphere though.

But really, is it okay to complain about food in a trendy restaurant?

crapface wrote:Not a restaurant review pet peeve, but an Amazon review one: When people rate the product with one star for something completely unrelated to the product, such as shipping.

At least you could understand what they were saying.

This is wonderful! I own a very small restaurant and am so glad that people are smart enough to see through the crud that gets sent to these mega review sites.

You mentioned most of them that really bug me.
How about when people come to a "Hawaiian Plate Lunch place and complain because it's served in a foam to-go container (look it up you'll understand).

One thing that annoys me more is that YELP "filters" reviews based on some top secret criteria to hide fake reviews.
We were doing a promotion once that required we had a certain number of reviews before we were allowed to do it. We asked our customers to go online and give us reviews. Good, Bad whatever. Many did do this but nearly all of them were "filtered" out so they do not show up or count toward our goal of getting reviews.
I no longer use YELP in any way.

I could go on & on but there's probably no one reading this far already.

Thanks for bringing it up woot!

Uncanny ... this list pretty much nails my top five restaurant review site peeves.

Couldn't vote for one of them, because they're all perfect.

I only trust my own reviews. Problem solved! :-D

not a peeve against review comments, but review sites

particularly, most especially, and totally, against sites that give any weight to popularity in rankings

which results in nonsense like Applebee's or Chili's being rated in the top-10 of a town with more than 8 restaurants

Ronski - Yelp filtered those reviews for the exact reason that the Yelp filter exists -- to prevent people from gaming the system.

When you ask people to go review your business, they are not likely to be regular Yelp users and are going to have one (maybe two) reviews under their belt.

Every first time reviewer finds their reviews get filtered. As time goes by and you add more reviews, the earlier ones get un-filtered. You've shown that you're not just there to be somebody's buddy or try to get a special treat.

When a business owner asks his customers to review a business it's also stacking the deck. I'm sure these people aren't dishonest or trying to be, but when 10 reviews suddenly come in for one restaurant it's glaringly obvious. And there are people who do far worse than this - pay others to leave reviews.

The funniest, however, are the people who have multiple reviews because they ave a single 5 star review for their favored business and another 10 1 star reviews for all the competitors. As if nobody is going to notice.

(You can see a stream of all the Yelp reviews for the past N days, so when there's a mad rush of reviews for one business it's damned obvious.)

When "Stan's", an old and popular local family restaurant/diner closed (Stan passed away) and new owners re-opened it as a deli-restaurant, it got a lot of reviews. The most irritating went something like:

"1-star. All of Stan's wonderful breakfast specials are GONE!!!!"

"2-stars. Stan's meatloaf was MUCH better."

"5-stars. The new decor is so much nicer."

"1-star. I really miss the old staff."

And of course, the classic:

"3-stars. Only went once and just had a sandwich that was pretty good. We'll see how good they really are after I've had a chance to try more of their menu."

That last one is a corollary to the classic Amazon review:

"1-star. Wasted over an hour trying to put this thing together, and finally had to get the instructions to do it. We'll see how good it is after I get a chance to use it."

"Yummy"

"One star. I've never been there myself but my brother's friend says it totally sucks!"

Restaurant food critic pet peeve.
Is he (or she):

A: an arrogant ass who thinks the world revolves around him?

B: so much of a pompous ass that he feels that a server should have been there to wipe his chin while he's busy slurping his bisque?

C: such an egotistic ass that he used the term "Do you know who I am" over and over again?

D: a snooty ass that looks for any reason to justify his petty tip.

E: All of the asses above.

I hate the comments from people who have a vendetta against the owner of a new place, and only have a single review under their belt: a one-star rating of the new place. Same repeated lies from review to review that shows they've never been there, such as "They microwave all their food, the server told me".

"I was in town for X [the busiest event of the year] and the service was just terrible, they made me wait for a table"

I agree with Bogus. My #1 complaint is when people trash places (or products) WITHOUT EVEN TRYING (or owning) THEM.

The thing about online reviews is that people are far more likely to actually review it if they have a bad experience rather than a poor experience.

trixierix wrote:“I wanted to like this place, I really did...”

I love this bc they actually went in with the very best intentions and just couldn't fake the fact that they were disappointed.

that's down there with "i don't mean to be rude," "with all due respect," and "can i ask you something personal?" all things that disingenuously defeat their own purposes. respectively, someone's gonna be rude, disrespectful, or ask you something personal.

and nobody with a [critique site] account "wanted to like this place." they wanted to critique the place.