Yelp! It is a platform that we’ve used for years, but have never really talked about on the blog. Why? It has always been a bit taboo, I suppose. Yelp doesn’t like their users doubling up their reviews. They see it as a conflict of interest. They have some control issues. As a result, we’ve always said no to their annual invites to be Yelp Elite. We play it safe by avoiding be too far in Yelp. Still, we love to use it for the following reason.
There’s a good chance that the only time you’ve heard about Yelp, it didn’t help you build trust in their brand. They’ve had a ton of bad publicity and we’ve actually had plenty of negative experiences with them, but let’s focus on the positive. Here in LA, Jonathan Gold’s 101 list is the “gold standard” for where to eat. LA Weekly just came out with a 99 Essential Restaurant list, and we can’t help but think that whoever compiled that list was GREATLY influenced by Gold. Sadly, even here in LA, very few people outside of the food industry know who he is.
It can be hard to find good places to eat and most people aren’t willing to do a ton of research. They don’t want to Google “best food critic in LA” and then read through Gold’s hundreds of reviews over the year. Instead, we look for more convenient options. Whether it is a reflection of our laziness or desire to save time, services that compile reviews have become extremely popular. Rotten Tomatoes is a great resource for movies, Amazon for consumer goods and Metacritic for video games. While Yelp is far from a household name, it does provide that similar service for businesses… especially places to eat!
There are two ways to use Yelp. You can either check out reviews as a guest or you can become a user and review businesses. Technically, a third way exists, as a business owner but we’re not going that direction today. As a guest, you can quickly type in “sushi” in New York and get an idea where the restaurant is, how much it costs, when it is open and what the population thinks about the food. While we don’t necessarily agree with the aggregate scores of certain places, and while we don’t necessarily trust Yelp’s filter, you’re much better off using Yelp than just walking into the first place you see.
