Twitter Food Fight! Customers and Restaurateurs Hash It Out!

For the record, if you're eating burgers at Sub Zero, the only one to go for is the tuna steak sushi burger, rare. Just sayin'...

A negative online review or tweet can be very frustrating, but to think that customers won't do it and will consider all the ramifications beforehand is unreasonable. Potential online reviews keep us on our toes more than a potential media review. Comments on Twitter and Yelp and other sites enter our staff meetings every time. It's a whole new game and it hopefully makes us better for it.

Tweeting or blogging that a place had bad food or service is fine. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise.

But doing so in an uncivil manner (like joking that you suffered food poisoning) is tacky and classless and just plain bad form.

And does anyone else get tired of the use of hash marks in tweets? #itsnotclever

It's even more annoying than the overuse of the expression "Fail." Which I'm willing to bet one of these tweeters uses on a regular basis. #sheep

In an age where a lot of paid critics seem to have become spin-agents, or otherwise constrained by pre-existing agendas or political considerations (present company excluded ;), bloggers, tweeters, and forum participants have become a great resource for getting honest opinions and truths. Sure, the snarkiness can obscure the message (and at minimum generally contributes little to the conversation), but give credit to the readers for being able to see past it to the meat of what is being communicated.

Hugh - Was Veety joking, though? I thought he was serious (based on the #noreally), and perhaps that might be why the whole group found the burgers so bad.

Though I agree it would be easier to tell had he said it in a more straightforward manner, without the cutesy hash tags.

Mo / Hugh

I will readily admit that I am guilty of tweeting out of context.

The folks who joined me undoubtably understood the meaning behind my statement but the casual reader would or could not have possibly known what I was talking about.

This is a separate issue from the burgers, which I have written about on my site and discussed at length on Twitter. I'm afraid that my initial comments have more than overshadowed anything I could say at this point though. That is the lesson re-learned for me.

Again - I am the first to admit that my choice of words at that moment were indeed a #fail.

Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Veety.

Anyone know when Mr. Sommers is going show up to better explain these "diners' responsibilities"? Because I'm bothered by this idea that when I go to a local eatery and pay for bad food and terrible service, I have also somehow purchased some mysterious set of looming obligations which extend beyond "pay the bill" and "don't disturb other patrons with random nudity."

Mo, I think you meant this "don't disturb other patrons with random nudity #depends"