How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business • Hacker News Board

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#111

Post by js2 » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 6:54 AM UTC

gist wrote: post #31

moron4hire wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've generally been growing to the idea that I want to hear all criticism towards my projects, whether it's good or bad, whether it's constructive or not. People suck at communicating, but when they leave criticism, there is always a reason somewhere at the core. It's the old saying that it is apathy, not hate, that is the opposite of love. So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to t…

On your homepage seanmcbeth.com the javascript (or whatever does the animation) is totally choking my Firefox (latest) running on a Mac Pro Desktop (latest). Infact when I tried to write this comment it was literally like 300 baud until I closed your website page. (All of this is to your point and ironically..) Btw it looks cool but if I can't easily scroll your homepage you have lost me as a potential client.

An iPad mini 2 running iOS 9.2 is similarly unhappy scrolling text against the animated badkground.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#112

Post by gonyea » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:02 AM UTC

Here's a great rule of thumb: don't write bad reviews. If a place sucked, oh well. People have bad days. Stop acting like a wannabe gourmet and shitting all over people.

I'll only consider a bad review if you give me food poisoning. Cooking your food thoroughly isn't hard.

... Or if your service personally lost me real money. Then it's a legit "beware."

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#113

Post by stormbrew » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:31 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #104

ufmace wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna go with stormbrew on this one. You say "destroy business" and destroy livelihood as if this guy is going to be kicked out on the streets because his business didn't work out. Give me a break - yeah, it's sad for him that his business failed, but I'm sure he'll find another upper-middle class job soon. Being a special snowflake founder doesn't excuse him from being criticized about running a fine-dining esta…

Please, restaurant jobs are blue collar, working class jobs. Even operating a restaurant is long, hard labour. Most restaurant owner/operators I know work 12 hour days, 6-7 days per week, and if they were to go bankrupt, certainly wouldn't be able to just jump to the next project... Capital doesn't simply line up for restaurateurs because there is no big exit. The most you can hope for is to make a profit by the time…

I don't think anyone is arguing it's easy to run a restaurant, or even to start one. That's not the point. The point is that someone having a business that's failing, or losing their job for that matter, has not had their "livelihood destroyed". They have had one tool in maintaining their livelihood removed, it does not mean they have no more.

And while capital does not (and really should not) line up easily for restaurateurs, I would still argue that someone who can raise capital once has a well above average chance of being able to raise it twice, regardless of the risk of the venture. This also assumes the only choice a business owner has when their business fails is to start another.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#114

Post by Asbostos » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 8:43 AM UTC

hluska wrote: post #6

You 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 tas…

Perhaps the New Zealander reviewer wouldn't have invested so much time and preparation into one meal if he didn't have high expectations? Sure it's bad if they didn't respect his reservation, but you don't reserve a seat at McDonalds that far in advance so you don't have the opportunity to suffer that problem.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#115

Post by hellweaver666 » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 8:48 AM UTC

rbritton wrote: post #96

moron4hire wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've generally been growing to the idea that I want to hear all criticism towards my projects, whether it's good or bad, whether it's constructive or not. People suck at communicating, but when they leave criticism, there is always a reason somewhere at the core. It's the old saying that it is apathy, not hate, that is the opposite of love. So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to t…

I tend to be in the same boat, but I feel there's an important caveat: the person providing the criticism needs to be reachable if the criticism itself lacks substance. A complaint just for the sake of venting does no good. Take, for example, a recent review on my iPad app: As a creative professional I can tell you that this is junk. Today I had an important meeting and this app acted up to the point the client laugh…

Somewhat ironic that a "creative professional" doesn't know how to leave a proper critique given that it's a valuable part of the role.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#116

Post by golergka » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 9:02 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #87

golergka wrote: post #21

> Who is he, Stalin? (I'm giving Hitler the day off.) On a completely unrelated note, I'm so glad that western public opinion views this guys on the same level of evil. If only russian public opinion was like that.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10767524 and marked it off-topic.

It certainly is off-topic. But I didn't know that off-topic discussion, that goes as off-topic as a polite conversation between real people often can, is discouraged by HN.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#117

Post by byuu » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 9:06 AM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #22

hluska wrote: post #6

You 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 tas…

I've generally been growing to the idea that I want to hear all criticism towards my projects, whether it's good or bad, whether it's constructive or not. People suck at communicating, but when they leave criticism, there is always a reason somewhere at the core. It's the old saying that it is apathy, not hate, that is the opposite of love. So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to t…

> So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to think of it as a failure of messaging on my behalf.

I tried that, but I got really burned out.

Someone writes a one-liner "I hate byuu's idea for X", and I write up an article explaining my motivations and rationale, spending three hours on it, listing a dozen cases where I explain why what I am doing is essential, and not just whimsical fancy. They ignore my response. And two weeks later, I see the same person with the same one-liner posting it somewhere else.

I find most people don't want to understand your reasoning. They simply want things exactly as they want it, or they're not happy. I never get anyone willing to have an open dialogue where they're actually open to trying new things, even though I am open to hearing any true criticisms that go beyond appeal to tradition (we'd all be using DOS if that were a valid argument.)

Very thankfully, in my case, I'm not selling a product, and I'm not funded by advertisements. And as such, I can get away with choosing to ignore certain types of criticism. I'm very empathetic to those who can't.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#118

Post by dagw » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 9:31 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #55

nols wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second paragraph says "the restaurant was never, ever full." So it seems like they expected to handle more business, and in fact the lack of business shut them down. Maybe they had problems with the growth, but if they were never full then they really shouldn't have. Restaurants with growth problems need to serve food quickly so they can get people in and out to make room for more people, this restaurant apparent…

there's number of tables and then there's number of people working there and how much they can handle. there can be too many customers with half the tables empty.

Reminds me of a local restaurant here. First time I went, shortly after they opened there where hardly any people there and I had one of the better meals I've had at that (low) price point. I promptly told everybody how awesome the place was and they got a glowing review in a local paper. A few month later they had tripled the number of tables they had, where packed, and the food and service was dire. Haven't been back since.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#119

Post by radicality » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 2:37 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #43

I started Matasano with two partners, both from NYC, one of whom had taken a break from software security to go to culinary school. What I heard from them is that stuff like this is also part of the restaurant culture of different cities. The rap on NYC and LA is that they have competitive, take-down cultures (NYC more so than LA).

Is there anywhere I can read some account/thoughts of your partner's break from software security to go to a culinary school? It sounds very interesting!

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#120

Post by moron4hire » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

byuu wrote: post #117

moron4hire wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've generally been growing to the idea that I want to hear all criticism towards my projects, whether it's good or bad, whether it's constructive or not. People suck at communicating, but when they leave criticism, there is always a reason somewhere at the core. It's the old saying that it is apathy, not hate, that is the opposite of love. So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to t…

> So when people are heaping hate on one of my projects, I am now starting to think of it as a failure of messaging on my behalf. I tried that, but I got really burned out. Someone writes a one-liner "I hate byuu's idea for X", and I write up an article explaining my motivations and rationale, spending three hours on it, listing a dozen cases where I explain why what I am doing is essential , and not just whimsical f…

Yes, it is hard.

I have a very good friend who quit his job in finance three years ago to focus on photography. (It's been a significant improvement to his health and happiness, but that's a story for a different day.) He has been doing a lot of very abstract photography, lately. He shoots and develops his own film in a pinhole camera he built, and the imagery is intentionally motion-blurred. He gets heaps of praise from other photographers, and tons of vitriol from randos on the internet. It's all of the very predictable, "this is bullshit, anyone could do this," kind. That's not true at all, the images are much harder to make than you would think. But he has not replied to the critics directly. Instead he works on making the images more obviously about the sort of dream- or ghost-like qualities he's chasing.

It is so easy to just dismiss a critic. "They don't understand what I'm trying to do." What's harder is building that explanation of what you're trying to do in what you're trying to do. It makes us better to not completely dismiss the critics.

And you do it for the next person. You've pretty much lost a person forever if they get to the level of vitriol. Don't bother with replying to them.

For me, I have a project that I care very much about. I want to make it work, because it has things in it that I want in my life. I haven't ever cared about my side projects as much as this one--which has more to say about this particular project than my past projects, I cared very much about some of them. Which is why I have to be honest about it. I can't delude myself about it, because I certainly won't be able to delude anyone else about it. I don't have that kind of social media power.