"The fact that no Arab people were working put me off when I walked in. The hummus was alright. The food was not the best middle eastern food I have had. A lot of my friends would not enter this place. They would enter the Palestine Garden. I assume that over in Dearborn there are way better places but this appeals to the demographic who thinks they are doing right by eating this type of food. The staff was great and service top notch. This would be a decent place to go in a pinch" Guess my friend and his family aren't brown enough for the food to be good. Idiot.
I actually do my yelp reviews in haiku just to buck the trend.
Several years ago, I made http://randomhaiku.blogspot.com. -It's still there!
Sugar on my tongue You'd better put that away Jumping in the lake It reminds me of a time I went camping on the Potowatamy trail in Michigan. We took acid and went swimming. I started "peaking" while in the lake and wouldn't get out because of the mosquitos. Later I spoke with a tree while listening to the Beatles Revolver. -Good times :)
"Food of self-loathing Took a long time for fried crap They forgot ketchup". You really need to post this as it's own thing. This seriously brought me a lot of joy. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. As I read your Yelpku a commercial for BMW featuring the song "Changes" by Bowie came on. Somehow all was right and wrong in the world at the same time.
Check this out - unyelpme.com! - we found it and it's fantastic - it will instantly fix your Yelp review stress like it did ours. We got our own reviews site that also ACCEPTS reviews too.
We did it all in a few minutes and never have to care again about Yelp ot any other review sites affecting our business. Just go to unyelpme.com and read the one page there and you'll understand in a few minutes. We think it's fabulous! Good luck all!
That said, now when I go to a new place, I look for the most highly rated eats on my phone, and they are never the chain restaurants.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/yelp-class-action-lawsuit/ On the other hand, Yelp doesn't really do much for big business. From a logical standpoint, one could argue that Yelp has an impact on small businesses that they don't have on large businesses. As Yelp expands, that impact expands. They are, if nothing else, a factor for small business over large business. I agree with you as to the causality. I haven't read the study; I might now. That said, I used Yelp on my road trip to find places to eat and was handsomely rewarded (I used Hipmunk to find places to stay and was punished mercilessly). Never once did I say "I'm going to hit Applebee's because I know it'll be good." I do the same in my neighborhood, even knowing the "shakedown" they do. If nothing else, Yelp and its ilk have changed the way we interact with businesses... and I think we're just starting to see the tip of the iceberg on this.
I'm curious, what was the issue with Hipmunk? I've used it a few times for flights, and that's worked out well. No so good for hotel search? Punished mercilessly sounds pretty bad. I know that they use orbitz for flights, do they use another service for their hotel search?
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60971-d73363-r11... Compare and contrast: http://www.yelp.com/biz/howard-johnson-flagstaff
http://www.yelp.com/biz/howard-johnson-inn-flagstaff
(same place) Hipmunk lists this shithole as the #3 choice in Flagstaff. Having stayed there, I would say this is right on: "The lady at the desk, who seemed very nice, told me they only had double rooms, but that she would charge me for a single if I agreed to only 'dirty' one of the beds. Bad sign. So I show up in the room. At 3 am I finally go to get under the covers. I lift the top sheet off the bed, and I kid you not, someone had TAKEN A DUMP right there on the bed." They hit me for a $10 "key deposit" (cash only - they took the 4 grubby bills I had) to give me a key that didn't work, then ran my card for $85 instead of $52 ("the number is right above it on the keypad!") and tripped the fraud protection on my credit card. On the plus side, they were right across from an auto parts store and (supposedly) a pretty good pizza place (that was closed for renovations). On the minus side, they were right on a busy freeway, across from which was a major BNSF railroad spur, and shared a parking lot with a nightclub that played Mexican polkas until 2am. So. Yelp: 4 1 star reviews. Hipmunk: #3 in the city by "ecstasy."
EDIT: No wait, my bad that's a different Ho-Jo, it seems. Looks like there's two. Sure you didn't book the wrong Ho-Jo? The route 66 ones seems pretty far down in ecstasy. :)