During a panel discussion at the Western Foodservice and Hospitality Expo in Los Angeles this past weekend, a Los Angeles chef brought up the topic of Yelp reviews. While this chef was in mid-sentence, Yelp’s Business Outreach Manager Luther Lowe happened to be walking by and stepped into the room to join the conversation.
An interesting discussion ensued, focusing on issues related to negative reviews by Yelpers with no restaurant or culinary training and the increasing need for chefs (and other local business owners) to join the Yelp conversation. 
With over 12 million user reviews and approximately 33 million views per month,* the power of Yelp’s word of mouth loud speaker is having a significant impact on local restaurants. Yelp has given millions of users the power to review restaurants’ chefs, menu items, wine lists, drink specialties, service, and ambiance and publish to an audience of millions of viewers – a power that was once reserved only for professional food and wine writers working for traditional publications.
As a result, Yelp is changing the way restaurateurs and chefs interact with their customers, as well as the way they must handle both their formal and informal public relations and marketing efforts.
On the positive side, Yelp is making the world of restaurant reviews a more democratic process rather than an elitist one. This process allows local restaurants which might not have received attention from traditional print or online food writers to receive a new type of media attention that can be a powerful force in generating new customers. In addition, Yelp allows restaurateurs, chefs, and front-of-the-house managers to receive real-time customer feedback that they can use to quickly evaluate and adjust everything from their menu choices to hiring choices.
On the negative side, for many chefs and restaurateurs who have amassed years of training in the culinary arts and whose restaurants are the result of considerable blood, sweat, and tears, Yelp’s democratic force in the world of reviews means that reviewers with no understanding of or training in the restaurant industry or the culinary arts can slam a chef for one off night or because they don’t understand what a particular dish is supposed to taste like.
Also problematic is the fact that the democratic masses of reviewers are not part of the traditional institution of journalism, which carries with it principles of responsible reporting (in theory at least…). An average Yelp reviewer is not likely to research the chef, his or her past experience, or the background of a particular menu’s cuisine influences before writing a good or bad review as would a traditional food critic.
The power of Yelp, however, is a reality that restaurants and other local businesses must now take into account in their business practices. As Yelp’s Lowe emphasized, businesses have an important voice on Yelp. Yelp provides businesses with the ability to take ownership of their listings by unlocking them on the site, allowing businesses to put information out there for the Yelp audience. Yelp also provides businesses with the ability to respond to reviews both publicly and privately, giving them an equal voice in the conversation and a means to reach out to customers who had negative experiences.
Lowe also emphasized Yelp’s efforts to maintain the integrity of the site’s reviews. As he explained in a follow-up conversation, Yelp employs a filtering technology to help ensure (to the best of its ability) that only trustworthy reviews end up on businesses’ pages. **
While it can be overwhelming for chefs, restaurateurs, and other business owners to have an endless parade of critics to contend with, social media outlets such as Yelp are here to stay and will continue to play an important role in influencing consumer decision-making. Only restaurants and other businesses that take a proactive approach to social media, incorporating this new force into their marketing plans, will be able to take advantage of its benefits.
* See http://www.yelp.com/about
** For more information about Yelp’s filter system, watch this: Yelp\’s Review Filter
Meredith D. Williams is on the executive board of Girls in Tech LA and writes for girlsintech.net on topics ranging from wine technology to the intersection of law and technology. In her day job, Meredith is a partner at Miller | Williams LLP, an employment litigation and counseling law firm. She helps businesses handle employment issues, including legal compliance, hiring, discipline, terminations, sexual harassment, workplace policies, disability accommodations, medical and pregnancy leave, and wage and hour, counseling them on a day-to-day or situation-by-situation basis and defending them against employee lawsuits. Follow Meredith: @MerEsqLA and caemployersresources.com
