Bad Restaurant Review - WWYD?

[foodcritic]

NC for this on the off chance someone works out who we are and decides to do someone similar...

We have a small independent restaurant, been established over 10 years, lots of lovely regular customers, and always grateful for new customers. Many of these come due to our good reviews on various sites such as TripAdvisor, Google, etc. Also we do a fair bit (probably weekly) on local community Facebook pages which also attracts new people and reminds existing customers of what we are doing by way of Chef Specials etc.

Last week a Google review went on with 2 stars - and a comment along the lines of 'sad to see xxxxx on the menu'. (xxxx being a dish that some people find unacceptable, others specifically come to our restaurant to eat as it's difficult to find in supermarkets or other restaurants)

There is a name so I know exactly who has written this, and she's a local person who has never eaten at our restaurant. She has on occasion also used a crying emoji when she sees posts for certain dishes on Facebook that i have posted. (Suspect she's not a meat eater)

So - I have responded to the review with a similarly short comment, basically saying how disappointing someone has given a review based not on eating in the restaurant and experiencing our food/service, but based on a specific menu item.

Reviews are so important to small businesses, we can't afford massive advertising campaigns, and although this one hasn't really put a dent in our overall rating it's so frustrating. But I'm now wondering if I shouldn't have responded as I've made us look as petty as her. What would you have done?

@Coffeeandcake15 I agree we should use much more graphic words about the things we do, including destroy or put down rather than put to sleep, but not every one agrees with us and I accept that.

What is your favourite recipe, btw?

Many People really don’t care about animals.
They really don’t believe they have any rights because they’d rather eat them, abuse them, bet on them make money from them, hunt them for fun.
You are exactly right with the comment on Black Rights. But you’ll be totally trashed for saying it. MN will say how can you say black people are the same as animals thats a terrible thing to say. Totally missing the point of course.

In the not too distant future the treatment of animals today will be an embarrassment.

They won’t admit to it though
Much like racists of the past.

YYou won't win in your fight too many people who eat meat but good luck. I watched the protesters at the horse race they won't win.

The world would become a boring and tasteless place if you did win.

Using Black rights as the same as animal rights is insulting. My bloke does not agree with you and he is also a meat eater and he washes his meat too.

@DarrellRiversCriminalBehaviourOrder aubergines are not the only fruit.

You are not a meat eater, but what does that mean? Eggs, dairy? Fish? Things with a face? Cheese with rennet? Gelatine in chocolate mousse? Isinglass in wine?

But I'm sure you have a favourite recipe to share. What is it? It could really help.

I don't go on the attack either, which is why I prefer people to be constructive.

So what is your favourite thing that would tell people that maybe they don't need to eat meat at all or at least some of the time?

‘My bloke does not agree with you’!!! Who cares
‘Washes his meat too’. ???

Planet?

A vegetarian friend staged a protest in a restaurant and said: "I fucking hate goat cheese." I understood. I wouldn't choose it either.

That comment is as useful as a chocolate teapot.

I thought you had to eat first, review after.
Sounds a bit like sabotage.

The post is about a restaurant review, but I don't believe it's been hijacked, as the review was specificallyabout controversial foods being served.

I personally have come to the conclusion that using animals or animal products in any way is wrong, unnecessary and cruel, but I thought as a minimum people now widely agreed how awful the most cruel animal products like veal and octopus were to produce/consume, it's on a par with live lobster and fois gras and the sort of things I definitely avoided even when I ate animals. I would want to know if a restaurant had these things and seems overall you're probably better off letting the review stand as you wouldn't want people inside your restaurant complaining about it. It seems like the op has come to that conclusion..

But guess what there's another way! We've been vegan for years now and eat amazing tasty food with no intentional suffering. Some of my favorite recipes are by Anna Jones - she's not vegan but her cooking is planet friendly so most of it is vegan, her sweet potato daal is a bit of a staple in our house. As with urry, Mexican and Italian food works amazingly well veganised using beans and lentils, we eat so much more interesting food then we used to. And I can sleep at night 🙌

No flesh, fish or fowl. No gelatine, rennet etc. I do eat dairy. I'm a strict vegetarian but not vegan. Why are you asking?

And I don't tell people what to eat, in part because, since I'm not vegan, they would point out that my choices involve cruelty too and are linked to the meat industry. And they'd be right. But I do notice that earlier, people were being told they'd better be vegan to be saying this stuff. And when someone said they were, they got piled on, with several people posting just to try to offend them by saying they were looking forward to eating meat.

I admire your optimism but I don't think my favourite recipe will add anything to this discussion. You could always start a new thread for vegetarian/vegan recipes if you want to.

There are more people giving up meat then ever before, and those protests at the horse racing were all over the news. Remember when fox hunting was banned? That didn't happen through people sitting at home keeping their opinions to themselves. That's true of every major leap forward in human and animal rights - things don't change if people don't stand up for what they believe in.

Quite shocked you are equating animal rights with black rights.

How predictable.

The topic was not meant to be the ethics of meat though …

Disrespectful to other cultures WOW

I respect that but you won't stop people from eating meat that's a big ask. Don't eat that steak have a lettuce instead. On my travels the other day I drove past a car that knocked down a deer and when I drove back an hour later its head was gone. Animal activist against a multi million pound food industry. It's about profit and consumer demand.

What are your shoes made off or your car seat?

True, but it is now.

Unfortunately :-( I feel for the OP , nobody has even asked about the veal .. they automatically believe that it’s a tiny baby calf as it used to be, brought up in a crate etc and while they happily eat a cow, they feel bad eating veal …. But crates aren’t legal here and Veal can be anything up to 8 months and a lot of breeders now grow veal on grassland so one month it’s deemed to be veal, the next beef … but not a huge difference . So it really makes a difference where meat is sourced and how it is brought up and unlike one of the posters , I think it is important how animals are raised and how they are killed .

I think the whole subject runs too black and white and people are too ready to berate others for their beliefs… it’s the trend to be militant about these things and I feel it just puts a whole heap of people off myself.

I’m a meat eater , although I was a vegetarian for around twenty years. I also have days and sometimes weeks with no meat , but I won’t be dictated to by some militant person with ‘human’ language talking of rape etc ( I wonder do they think that putting a bull in a field to run with cows is also rape , because plenty of farmers still do that too ) as to what I eat , neither would I dictate to anyone else what they should eat .

This shows how uneducated you are about vegans, ‘don’t eat steak have lettuce instead’. Lettuce alone is not a meal.

I am the eternal optimist but also a pragmatist.

If I started a new thread about my favourite vegetarian/vegan recipes it would get diluted or lost and I think it is really important to turn this one into a more positive thread than the negative it's turning into.

And who are you to tell me to go off this thread and start another one? That's a bit cheeky.

I think it would be the perfect opportunity to educate people, don't you? We should all try to eat less meat or animal products, shouldn't we? I've made that change in my life and think this thread is the ideal opportunity for you and @Coffeeandcake15 and others to help people to do it.

I'm really interested in hearing about your favourite vegetarian or vegan recipes because I think your examples would really help people to think making a change rather than telling them off, which tends to make people feel resentful and dig in their heels.

I have lots so you must have one. Don't be shy. Or do you just want to be negative and scold people?

I am not interested in becoming a vegan I am happy the way I am.

Who said you are interested in being vegan?
I was pointing to your post about insinuating vegans eat lettuce, I would say that forms 1% of my diet, probably similar to a meat eaters.

Inserting a forearm into a cows anus and putting a rod into their genitals, is quite different to reproduction that takes place in the wild, don’t you think?
I haven’t dictated what people should eat, I’ve talked about the meat industry and what happens behind closed doors and lots of people have become defensive (including you) whilst not really answering any questions I’ve put forwards.