Many restaurant operators have a love/hate relationship with Yelp, the user-generated review website and app, and the frustrated owners of Botto Bistro decided to hitch their wagon to a one-star ranking in a protest.
Earlier this month, the Richmond, Calif.-based Italian eatery decided it would become Yelp’s waning star and offered customers a 25 percent discount on its “terrible pizza” if they left a one-star review on the five-star scale.
They did so in droves. Hundreds of so-called Yelpers took to the platform to leave scathingly humorous reviews with their one-star rankings.
Mike Aldax of the Richmond Standard noted Sept. 15 that “Botto Bistro’s owners have thumbed their noses at Yelp by encouraging its customers to write negative reviews."
Botto Bistro’s Yelp pages quickly “filled with confusing one-star reviews, making it quite difficult for potential patrons to know whether any negative review is honest,” Aldax said. “The strategy is quite brilliant.”
For example, one-star reviewer Aarti P. wrote: “The staff and owners talk to you, like they’re friendly and stuff. I’m hyper-allergic to friendly people and if I have to interact, I’d prefer to do it with my phone.”
The waning-star strategy was a success, with the restaurant achieving one-star status with more than 1,030 reviews. Botto Bistro, on its website, now declares: “We made it!
“It's official, Botto Bistro is the worst restaurant on Yelp and in Yelp's world. … Our goal is finally reached! Now if you want our terrible pizza there is no more 25 percent off - you have to pay full price! (We are crazy, but not stupid!)”
The restaurant noted that the public’s support was important to its snarky campaign. “This amazing reward is the result of what people can do together. This Yelp one star is all yours, dear friends,” the restaurant stated.
The reviews came from across the nation and leaned heavily toward the outrageous. Andrew G., for example, was positive but went negative when he realized there were “no pet giraffes or tigers allowed inside” and “food is not free and I have to pay for it.”
The restaurant even carried its Yelp campaign into its hiring ads. On Craigslist, the restaurant is seeking “most unprofessional/unreliable/inexperienced barista/counter person with bad attitude in the country.”
The restaurant’s campaign came on the heels of a federal appeals court ruling earlier this month that said Yelp can operate its platform as it sees fit.
Yelp has long faced allegations that it pressures business to advertise in exchange for ratings, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Yelp is entitled to set a price for its ads and the businesses reviewed have no legal right to a high rating.
"As Yelp has the right to charge for legitimate advertising services, the (alleged) threat of economic harm ... is, at most, hard bargaining," and not extortion or unfair business practices, Judge Marsha Berzon wrote in a 3-0 ruling.
The court upheld a federal judge's dismissal of a proposed class-action damage suit by small-business owners who claimed Yelp's sales representatives told them their ratings would depend on their decision to buy ads.
Botto Bistro’s campaign has been picked up by at least one other business. Earlier this week, the website Landlordlink.net said it was launching its own “Hate Us on Yelp” campaign.
Kirby Sommers, in a press statement, said “When my clients asked if I would like them to place reviews on Yelp, I initially agreed. Only after I saw review by review filtered and removed, did I start to think that perhaps the phone call I had received from Yelp’s advertising department where I declined to become an advertiser may have played a significant role in the removal of all of my reviews.”
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
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