Thank you, Courtney B., Los Angeles, CA for your review of Hippo, a restaurant in the Highland Park neighborhood of LA.
I was sent your review and was made to feel anger towards you the minute I started reading it. (See what I did there?) Yet there are just so many “hilarious” things I have to say about it that you’ve actually given me a gift by sparking more joy than usual in my reviewing process.
Let’s just walk through your evening shall we?
You and your boyfriend go out to dinner without a reservation which is completely fine except for the fact that you’ve chosen a restaurant that seems to be busy enough to rely on them. Instead of just seating you and rushing your meal, the manager gives you a heads up by telling you that they need the table back by 7:30. It is very clear to me that you’ve never worked in a restaurant because this is totally normal if a place is booked for the evening. They were actually doing you a favor - if you had wanted a more relaxing, luxurious evening this was your opportunity to go elsewhere. Somehow this seems to have offended you.
Next you mention that you tried to make a reservation on Yelp but it didn’t have the option to do so. And somehow that is the restaurants fault? The manager responds with “Yelp is a silly, silly website and to never use it” (Not really the way to make a direct quote but okay). THEN - and this is my favorite part - you you say you think it’s “hilarious because she had no clue she was speaking to two Yelp Elite’s”.
To which let me just say:
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHaaaaaaaaa.
Who do you think you are?
Oh, you’re Yelp Elite?! Who fucking cares! Also, for the record it’s “Elites” not “Elite’s”. Why would it be possessive? Idiot.
The manager is right. Yelp is a silly silly website. Do I think you should never use it? No. I definitely care for it when I’m looking up something as personal as a bikini waxer or something as important as checking if a place has happy hour, but it is not the most reliable website in the world.
Yelp is actually pretty petty, much like yourself. Did you know (I’m sure you didn’t) that Yelp will purposefully leave negative reviews at the top of a business’ page if the business won’t pay for it’s promotional services? More disgustingly it will actively remove 5 star reviews from business’ that don’t want to pay for advertising. It won’t update the hours of operation if they don’t pay, and it makes it more difficult to find places in a search if… they don’t pay. And if you don’t believe me look at the Yelp page for Yelp - TWO STARS - or talk to any small to medium sized business owner.
Aside from that, so many people (strangers) post unnecessary reviews on Yelp that your voice is most likely just getting sent into the masses. But hopefully it made you feel important, right?
How do you think that the table at 7:30 got their reservation? I don’t know, maybe they googled Hippo Los Angeles, found the link to the actual restaurant’s website - not a secondary website not actually connected to this business - and clicked on the giant blue button on the main screen which says ‘RESERVATIONS’. Wow. What an idea!
So your appetizer sat for ten minutes while everyone else was busy working somewhere else, that is unfortunate, but the fact that you had your eye on it the whole time makes it very obvious that you were not there to just eat dinner.
(And for the record, as someone who works in restaurants I can tell you that 10 minutes in customer time is actually only about 3-4 minutes in real time.)
You were there to critique the restaurant. Because you think that somehow having a blue checkmark next to your name makes you a restaurant connoisseur. If that were the case you probably wouldn’t have needed the waitress to choose a wine for you, or you would have realized that the manager replacing your trout (which you even said was delicious) or warning you about a future reservation was her doing her job and doing it well.
In an ideal world you would have gone to the restaurant to enjoy the dining experience. Sitting across from (or probably next to, ugh) your boyfriend and actually talking to each other, rather than scoping the place for mistakes so you could angrily report them to the internet void. But you just don’t strike me as that kind of girl. Or given that you’re both Yelp “Elite’s” is this what keeps your relationship going? Is the act of spending money on the opportunity to scrutinize people who are just trying to do their jobs the glue that holds your relationship together?
The reason I’m giving you such a hard time Courtney B is because you sound like a self-centered asshole. “It is so incredibly tacky to tell a customer they have to leave by a certain time, no matter how many reservations you have.” Fuck off, Courtney. The world does not revolve around you. Why do you think your meal is more important than everyone else’s? Do you it’s fair the manager would have to tell the 7:30 reservation they have to wait because they got a “walk in” who won’t leave? And then the 9:30 has to wait, and you’ve now altered their entire floor plan because you think that your evening is more important.
You know what’s so incredibly tacky? YOU, Courtney, YOU are so incredibly tacky.
Take your silly Yelp Elite status (notice, not in quotes) and shove it.