How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
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Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#2damn that must be hard. just like that trump guy who grew up in brooklyn with nothing but his hands, his brain and 1 million dollar.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#3Starting a business is really hard, these people experienced just one of a near-infinite and surprising way that new companies fail. The good news is that should they try a new concept that is more community-oriented they'll have more leverage with investors and potential partners since they can clearly show they have potential.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#4And they continue to beat up on the guy in the comments: "You represent everything that is wrong with the food industry in Los Angeles."
Can you imagine that? Who is he, Stalin? (I'm giving Hitler the day off.)
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#5Why not just write that on the menu? One of the best (and highest rated) restaurants near me often features a rant at the bottom of the menu from the owner, either about politics or the economics of the business or just complaining about the customers being douchebags. It's a little quirky, but it doesn't seem to hurt business any, and at least helps the customers understand his perspective on things.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#6You know, at the risk of heaping on the negativity, I read their Yelp ratings and while some are excellent, others are genuinely a sign of a restaurant in crisis.
Consider the gentleman from New Zealand who made reservations via an email to the owner five weeks in advance, spent the afternoon walking around downtown LA to avoid rush hour traffic, and then showed up only to be told that they were closed for a wine tasting. Or, there was the reviewer who got the point of the restaurant, but still found the flavours rather difficult. Or heck, consider the endless comments about how poor the service was.
I take a couple of things away from this:
- No matter how interesting your product is, you still need to please your customers.
- When you're emotionally invested in something, it is tempting to set aside criticism as being gratuitously negative. But, sometimes your critics are your best advisers.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#7And they continue to beat up on the guy in the comments: "You represent everything that is wrong with the food industry in Los Angeles." Can you imagine that? Who is he, Stalin? (I'm giving Hitler the day off.)
There's a reason south park riffed on this in the latest season.
Everyone thinks their opinion is important because the internet has made it easy for people to broadcast their complaints to the world (and yes, I realize I'm literally doing this right now). Review sites like Yelp exacerbate this by making everyone think they're a damn food critic.
Throw in a heavy dose of entitlement and its a recipe for disaster.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#8damn that must be hard. just like that trump guy who grew up in brooklyn with nothing but his hands, his brain and 1 million dollar.
It's almost impossible to open a restaurant for less than 100k, so I don't know what you are going on about. Even if the 50k was free money from daddy, and not a business loan mixed with life savings and a a second mortgage, it's not even in the same realm.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#9It is so easy to criticize food. This is not different than writing or cinematography. This is the same attack against George Lucas. The Phantom Menance wasn't written for 34 year olds who act like children playing pretend in costumes, its target audience is 7 year olds. And, the movie is about growing up, leaving the protection of the protective mother (although gender roles have changed so now this includes the protective father) and join the adults.
There are probably a lot of people on HN in academia who after publishing popular papers or gained some fame find themselves with targets on their back for criticism.
Anyone dealing with the pressure of criticism should read a very small book that contains 10 letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke to an aspiring poet who went to the same German military school he went to called Letters to a Young Poet. [1]
It starts with:
"I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings."
I did cook professionally for 17 years. I understand what this chef feels. However, I have learned to not care about what anybody feels or says about my dishes. I do not cook for other people. I cook for myself, because I enjoy the process, intensity, and experience of cooking and the food I make is what I would want to eat. Most of the time I find what I want to eat is also what other people want to eat and in the cases it is not they can move along to next restaurant because I don't care what they think.
Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business
#10And they continue to beat up on the guy in the comments: "You represent everything that is wrong with the food industry in Los Angeles." Can you imagine that? Who is he, Stalin? (I'm giving Hitler the day off.)
There's a reason south park riffed on this in the latest season. Everyone thinks their opinion is important because the internet has made it easy for people to broadcast their complaints to the world (and yes, I realize I'm literally doing this right now ). Review sites like Yelp exacerbate this by making everyone think they're a damn food critic. Throw in a heavy dose of entitlement and its a recipe for disaster.
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