Yelp: a look at local attitudes for the online customer review giant

A cozy restaurant-bar sits on a street corner in Northern Liberties.
The decor is unassuming yet quirky, full of warm woods and cartoon pigs with Xs for eyes on the walls, light fixtures and menus. A handwritten chalkboard list displays the beers on tap and today’s special: Cabernet served in a mason jar for $3.
This is The Blind Pig, and Steven Brewer and his wife drove up from the suburbs of Philadelphia to eat dinner here one sweltering August evening. Although it’s only been open for about a month, he knew he had to try their signature Thanksgiving Balls: deep-fried turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing served with gravy and cranberry sauce.
Brewer, like two million others on any given day, used the popular customer review site Yelp to help him decide on that night’s dinner spot. It’s the modern soapbox and megaphone, and anyone can step up. While this can be a tremendous resource for both customers and business owners, visitors to Yelp should tread carefully, as—like anything else online—you can’t take everything that’s been “Yelped” at face value.
A week after Google made news for purchasing Zagat and two years following a failed bid to take over Yelp, what does the local scene of the wildly popular online customer review site look like?
“Our purpose: To connect people with great local businesses,” the site reads. And connect, they have. The number of Yelp users—dubbed “Yelpers”—has skyrocketed since Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons founded the site in July 2004. Last month alone, Yelp reported 53 million unique visitors looking to read reviews, write reviews or socialize.
“It’s really sucked me in,” said Brewer, 56, a daily Yelper with 379 reviews and the suburban Blind Pig visitor we met earlier. He began as a passive reader, like 90 percent of visitors, according to Yelp manager Daniel Holloway.
Soon, Brewer’s consistent review writing and social participation gained the administration’s attention. They asked him to join the Yelp Elite Squad, a role model group of the most experienced, active Yelpers.

While there’s no shortage of competitors, including Urbanspoon, MenuPages, and Citysearch, Yelp stands on top as the largest collection of online reviews. They recently crossed the 20 million-review mark and continue to grow.
Twenty-four-year-old Elite Yelper Nancy P., like Brewer, mainly uses Yelp to find places to eat. However, for her, not all Yelpers are created equal. While she will read most reviews on a page, she takes Elite Yelpers and Yelpers with profile pictures more seriously.
“Yelpers definitely need a face to the name, otherwise they are too cowardly to back up their convictions,” she said.
Experienced Yelpers know to automatically discount certain reviews. “Sometimes, someone gets really pissed off at a restaurant,” Brewer said. “They just go crazy, ranting about a restaurant because they had a bad experience. And then they never do anything again.”
However, casual viewers may not know how to read between the lines, and these kinds of reviews can damage reputations and business. In a 2011 survey by national restaurant supplies and equipment distributor Tundra Specialties, 43 percent of restaurateurs thought Yelp was the most damaging website to the food service industry.
In an effort to combat disingenuous reviews, including positive reviews posted by business promoters, Yelp instituted a review filter system run by proprietary algorithms.
The filter isn’t perfect, though. CEO Stoppelman admits that some legitimate content does get sacrificed while some bogus reviews fall through the cracks.
“It’s unfortunate, but this is what is required to maximize trustworthy content and provide value to consumers and businesses alike,” wrote Stoppelman.
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Some offended restaurant owners angrily reply to Yelpers, as Susan Graeser, 27, has experienced.
“Someone once contacted me about their restaurant—which I had given four stars—and told me I knew nothing about food or pasta and said that I should be shot,” said Graeser. “That, I was disgusted by.”
Both consumers and business owners would likely benefit from developing thick skin.
Tommy Up, 37, owner of PYT in Northern Liberties, described a recent conversation with his friend Han Chiang, owner of Han Dynasty in Olde City.
“One day we’re eating there and he’s on his phone looking at Yelp. He starts cursing like, ‘This stupid customer! Argh!'” said Up, raising his hands in mock anger. “They’re complaining about something like his hallway was cold. I’m like, ‘Dude, your restaurant’s the best Chinese food I’ve ever had. Just don’t go on Yelp, you’re gonna drive yourself crazy.’ Yeah, I don’t need that stress.”
On the other hand, restaurateurs like Jason Evenchik, 38-year-old owner of Vintage Wine Bar in Market East and Time Restaurant in Center City, use Yelp for improvement.
“I’ll check to see if there are any valid criticisms or points that need addressing, food- or service-related,” said Evenchik. Yelp complaints started dialogue about a bartender Evenchik was employing. “Once I personally received an actual complaint, that was the final straw. I take everything online with a grain of salt.”
For Yelpers like Brewer and Nancy P., that’s the goal. They hope that customer opinions get through to business owners.
“This is almost like free marketing advice for them,” said Nancy P.
However, restaurant owners like Evenchik and Up agree that Yelp reviews take a backseat to other forms of feedback, like in-store complaints, phone calls, or emails.
“Anybody that contacts us personally, we make our best effort to get back to right away,” said Up, who does not check PYT’s Yelp page, but focuses on his existing customer base.
“We’ve developed a strong following of people who love our place who don’t go on a lot of social critique sites,” said Up. “They’re actually doing things. They’re here, living in the city, having fun, and they don’t spend a lot of time talking about if the bread was stale at different restaurants. Not that our bread is.”
What does get Yelpers out into the city is Yelp Elite events, exclusive events where Elite Yelpers eat, drink, and be merry while restaurant owners foot the bill.
“They’re looking to build up business and they understand that the really good Yelpers, if they write good reviews, can have an impact. So everybody understands that the restaurant’s doing it for very self-serving reasons,” said Brewer.
Brewer described an event this summer at the Continental in Old City. “Stephen Starr really rolled out the red carpet. It makes you more inclined to visit his other restaurants, because he did such a great job for us.”
However, the concept behind Yelp Elite events has raised controversy.
“It’s basically free food so it becomes a little biased,” said Ashley Primis, 31, food writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “These Yelp parties may be unfair and skew the vision of the experience.”
Restaurateurs realize that one memorable event can generate a flurry of publicity.
“That’s really good experiential marketing for the brand,” said Up. Yelp creates a separate event page from the restaurant page, so, ideally, Yelpers separate their opinions of the event from their opinions of the venue. Elite events end up helping Yelp as a business, too. Just like the “Elite” badge next to a username indicating status, events are an incentive for the Yelp consumer base to grow and increase usage.
Zhongmin Wang of Northeastern University conducted a study on social review sites called “Anonymity, Social Image, and the Competition for Volunteers: A Case Study of the Online Market for Reviews.” He concluded that the reputation-building aspect of Yelping has been an integral component of its success.
However, the field is always changing. Primis compares the reaction to the Zagat Survey’s debut in 1979, the now Google-owned guidebook compiling ratings by diners in various cities.
“People are just going to have to adjust,” said Primis. “It forces people to be on their toes all the time, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
Up, who’s been running PYT for two years, said he stopped reading Yelp after the first year.
“As I made the transition from someone who reads about restaurants to someone who’s running one, I realized it’s impossible to please everybody. But what you can do is make the people who love your place very happy. And at the same time, you’re going to alienate a bunch of people,” he said. “And that’s fine, because if you try to make everyone happy, you’re going to make no one really happy.”