SF Pizzeria Puts 1-Star Yelp Reviews On Its T-Shirts

from the never-met-a-pizza-i-didn't-love dept

Thu, Mar 5th 2009 4:21pm — Dennis Yang

With all of the recent news about merchants up in arms over negative online reviews, a San Francisco pizzeria has decided to take a brilliant approach to the (albeit few) negative Yelp reviews about their restaurant. In a sort of "take back the night" approach, Delfina Pizza has adorned its staff with t-shirts that bear the text of their 1-star reviews. With sayings like "The pizza was soooo greasy. I am assuming this was in part due to the pig fat," Delfina boldly acknowledges that it understands everyone is a critic, and that it is not afraid of a bad review or two. Gone are the Ratatouille days where restaurants live or die by one star of some food critic's review; instead, perhaps restaurateurs will learn that reviews are a starting point for holding meaningful conversations with their customers. Of course, in this particular case, the strategy may backfire -- already one Yelp reviewer has submitted a 1-star review asking "am i good enough for a t-shirt now?"

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Filed Under: embracing, reviews
Companies: delfina pizza, yelp

10 Comments

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 5 Mar 2009 @ 5:14pm

Backfire Schmackfire
Print up the "Am I good enough for a T-shirt" t-shirt. Heck, change the name to "Yelp's One Star Pizzaria."
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jonnyq, 5 Mar 2009 @ 6:04pm

And tomorrow, of course, Yelp will sue for the pizzaria for "stealing" their icons =)
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TehShrike (profile), 5 Mar 2009 @ 6:29pm

Impressive...
The impressive thing is how far back through their ratings you have to go before you run into some 1-star ratings.
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DaveL, 5 Mar 2009 @ 7:05pm

It's not the reviews that are the problem
It's not the reviews that are my problem,

My problem is the the fact that within a week of my turning down their offer of "allowing" me to advertise on their site that four new negative "reviews" just appeared, two (very old) legit negative reviews (that I had dealt with the customers to correct the problems and thought the customers had pulled them) appeared at the top of the list and 4 excellent recent reviews just disappeared entirely.

And it's just not me, see
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/yelp_and_the_business_of_extortion_2_0/Content?oid=927491&a mp;page=1

As far as I am concerned yelp has jumped the shark. I'll never trust them for anything ever again.
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Michael Whitetail, 5 Mar 2009 @ 9:35pm

My review is covered under US copyright law, and therefore on Monday, my attorney will be serving said Pizzeria for infringement. We're thinking of asking for 100 million dollars in in punitive damages for willful infringement.
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benniek, 5 Mar 2009 @ 10:31pm

Yelp jumped the shark the day they opened their doors. Unwashed local reviews from Joe Clueless? They did that as far back as Sidewalk.com (remember THAT?) and beyond. Zzzzzzzzzzz
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Mark, 6 Mar 2009 @ 9:14am

Lost Job
I lost my job.. at a restuarant.. due to a Yelp review.. my boss read them like the bible.. and the girl.. wrote 12 reviews of places ion 1 day... im bitter!!!!
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Gene Cavanaugh, 6 Mar 2009 @ 4:06pm

1 star reviews
Right on, Michael!

Some time ago, some friends panned a local restaurant. The way they saw it, that restaurant had no redeeming features at all.
We had never thought of trying it, but we then made a small purchase (to see what they were talking about for ourselves), then a larger purchase - and until we moved, that was our favorite restaurant.
Had we not heard "how bad" it was, I doubt we would ever have tried it.
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Jay S., 20 Mar 2009 @ 10:24am

Ranking reduction after declining sales pitch
For over 40 weeks our shop was organically ranked number 1 on Yelp! until...Yelp has been calling us for months in an attempt to get us to pay for advertising. One thing our clients appreciate is that our 5 star rating is genuine and unsolicited. Yes, we have had an occasional neg rating, in fact we identified one such individual from our own building who provides similar services! Yelp's screening process eventually dropped the person, although I received two explanations as to how the screening process takes place. Back to the reduced ranking...I finally decided to engage in conversation with a Yelp rep, reviewing cost, etc. I pointed out that the categories we were listed under weren’t entirely complete. The rep, and I quote, "This will be easy to fix it's an administrative thing on my end. I'll simply add the additional categories". A polite conversation all in all, but we opted not to purchase advertising. Within 2 weeks we dropped from #1 to #9 and lost, not gained, two categories. Falsely, I might add. Hell, we now have shops ranked ahead of us that have fewer reviews and lower ratings! So what’s the deal? I believe that Yelp will promote businesses with little aid from reviewers in the hopes of getting their business. When their attempts fail, they demote the business. My advice, if you’re getting calls from Yelp, let them keep calling and you won’t lose your current standing, that’s where I made my mistake. Is there a place on Yelp where I can comment and rank on Yelp!?!
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Yelp Is Dishonest, 12 Nov 2010 @ 9:37am

Our business has had 5 reviews so far. One is a negative review from a man who is lying about being a client; the other four are very positive. Yelp keeps only the dishonest negative review on our Yelp page, and filters out all positive reviews. Then, after complaining about this, they start hitting me up to set up a "business" account. I will never trust Yelp, again.
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