Restaurant reviews

Did you tell the restaurant's waitperson or manager about this yet?

It was a small area with people within earshot, so I did not want to do so.

And I have had friends that have done just that and it was not well received. And does nothing to save the next person from a disappointing experience. I guess as long as their are so many people that accept the high prices and mediocrity, this will continue. I am happy for the availability of local seafood and a well equipped kitchen... ;-)

This thought process is why this board has become "useless" for whats good or not so good in the Area...that's why I trust Yelp...Urban Spoon...and other sites more for actual true reviews....It seems like anytime you say anything bad about a place on here you get attacked for being unpatriotic to the local places...I have left scathing reviews in here in the past for places like Jambones...JC's Off The Hook...Old Florida Fish House..Johnny McTighes..etc cause I want to warn people when places are not up to snuff and I appreciate when others do the same(Plays With Food for Example)...I would like to hear about your experience so I can see whether I need to avoid it when I am in town this week for a Wedding....

Green Knight-I will shoot you a private message....

And I do know there are good experiences to be had here on 30A. Had dinner at Cafe 30A last week and the tuna entree was OUTSTANDING.

Green Knight-I will shoot you a private message....

And I do know there are good experiences to be had here on 30A. Had dinner at Cafe 30A last week and the tuna entree was OUTSTANDING.

Appreciate it Merbel....I also would like to point out I am just as quick to hype up a place when it is good...Stinky's..Louis Louis...Smiling Fish Cafe...Late Great Criollas..Borago..Great Southern...etc..etc...

Merbel, I appreciate your trying to save the restaurant's rep, but you're not doing them any favors if you didn't speak up to management. If they don't know that there's a problem (and sometimes they truly don't) then they can't fix it!

I would suggest next time that you politely, and quietly, ask to speak to a manager privately if you don't feel like you can speak to your server for whatever reason (close quarters with other diners, the server BEING the problem, etc.) and voice your opinions/complaints. In every restaurant I've ever worked at, I know that we've appreciated being made aware of genuine problems so that they could be corrected. (I say "genuine" because we can't really help that someone brought in a brood of ten kids with horrendous table manners, we can only try to contain the situation as best as possible.)

We LOVE our local restaurants, and want them to stay in business... but we also all want them to be the BEST they can be! Help them out, and let them know if there's an issue.

I agree speaking with management is a good idea and appreciate that perspective. However, there are restaurants here that I know people have either 1)spoken to the staff or 2)read a negative review of their restaurant, and they continue to serve mediocre food. And I would appreciate it if I had a venue for determining which of those here fall into the "avoid" and "go" category. And restaurants change-there is one here I used to love, but now would avoid. This may not be the venue for realistic, honest reviews and if that is the case, so be it. Or perhaps I will just avail myself of the private message venue.

If you know people have NICELY spoken to staff/management and they are still sub-par, stop going there. Tons of great restaurants here, so no reason to patronize those that have bad food, service or both.

But you have to actually have taken some action to correct it/tell them about it first - you can't do nothing and then complain about them.

I have gotten very frustrated lately too - honest reviews are hard to find. It used to be someone could post about a restaurant experience and those opinions were either refuted or echoed, or they were quickly revealed to be an owner/employee talking the place up or someone with a grudge.

Now you apparently have to judge by whether several people have posted a good review or if there is a distinct lack of commentary about that restaurant - aside from links to articles or announcements promoting the place.

Did you know you can rate restaurants on SoWal.com?

SoWal Dining Guide | SoWal.com - the Beachzine for South Walton Beaches & Scenic 30A

http://www.SoWal.com/top-rated-restaurants

We don't want to squelch your honest opinions so give it a shot. Referring to the original post, most folks are accustomed to paying $10 for sandwich and don't know what is mediocre. It seems like many patrons are thrilled with mediocre. So what you consider bad is someone else's good. That's why mediocre restaurants survive. If you post something negative here and get attacked it is by people who have a different opinion than you do. So who has the problem?

I agree speaking with management is a good idea and appreciate that perspective. However, there are restaurants here that I know people have either 1)spoken to the staff or 2)read a negative review of their restaurant, and they continue to serve mediocre food. And I would appreciate it if I had a venue for determining which of those here fall into the "avoid" and "go" category. And restaurants change-there is one here I used to love, but now would avoid. This may not be the venue for realistic, honest reviews and if that is the case, so be it. Or perhaps I will just avail myself of the private message venue.

I agree. There are restaurants that we all know people have already tried to talk to. The fact that your original post said you were "disappointed" made me think that this wasn't one of them, and that they were not up to par with your expectations.

Personally, I feel that if you made an honest effort to talk to the staff/management, and your complaints did not receive a sincerely apologetic response and/or correction, I think it's okay to come to the forum and post about it.

Let me emphasize that: POST about it, NOT rail about it. I think that it is extremely helpful to have well-written, thought-out posts detailing the issues that you had with food quality, service, etc. That gives people a good frame of reference, and they can decide for themselves whether they want to chance it. I think the biggest problem that a forum can face is people posting when they're still really P.O.'d about what they just experienced.

Coming on here and writing, "Such&Such Restaurant SUCKS!" isn't going to help anybody. Sleep on it, think over what the real problems were, take into account any influencing factors (maybe there's a large spring break group in town so you had to wait a little longer for a table, maybe you were already agitated because of the screaming baby across the aisle from you, etc.) and then calmly and rationally post about your experience.

So long as you're providing facts (i.e., the food was under/over cooked, we were served the wrong meal, the servers were ill-tempered...) and not just flaming an establishment because you didn't get the table you wanted or some other silly nonsense, I see no reason that you should feel guilty in posting. You might even let people know whether you plan to go back and give them another try, because we're all human, and everybody has an off night from time to time; or whether you are going to steer clear of them for good.

Also, keep in mind that everybody's got an opinion. The restaurants you want to avoid may be your neighbor's favorite haunts... just back it up with facts, and you're completely entitled to your opinion.

IMO With so many Owners posting on this Board alot of people are reluctant to leave Negative Reviews as well...It makes it frustrating for us that are only down there a few glorious weeks a year that we "waste" one of our days or nights out on a Bad Meal....fortunately I have gotten to know alot of locals and they give me the Current State of Affairs.....cause as Merbel said in an earlier Post some once great places have slid in recent times

Exactly. I always feel as if I must "read between the lines" to try and figure out the reality. And yes, I love many of the wonderful restaurants in the area, but certainly not all (many of which seem to do quite well). Unfortunately, some of us spend only part of the year here and don't have the luxury of trying a number of places each time to tease out the best experiences. I would love to offer my opinions honestly and freely, but it seems this may not be the best place to do so. I enjoy sowal in general and the forums in particular and will continue to support and patronize the site!

Did you know you can rate restaurants on SoWal.com?

SoWal Dining Guide | SoWal.com - the Beachzine for South Walton Beaches & Scenic 30A

We don't want to squelch your honest opinions so give it a shot. Referring to the original post, most folks are accustomed to paying $10 for sandwich and don't know what is mediocre. It seems like many patrons are thrilled with mediocre. So what you consider bad is someone else's good. That's why mediocre restaurants survive. If you post something negative here and get attacked it is by people who have a different opinion than you do. So who has the problem?

I think the formatting on that is messed up from the latest "upgrade". Some restaurants are showing up 2-3 times in a row with the same info.

In the past I have eaten at a few places down there thatI had seen rave reviews from people on this board that were absolutely horrible and I would think really ,you like that. And no I didn't complain to management because I knew it was a fav place of many. By the same token I'm sure some people would not some of the places that I like .

I have not had good luck with Yelp because of how it defines my zip code as also including Grayton Beach, which is like 20+ miles and one county away, and also tends to still list places that have been closed for years. But the Urban Spoon reviews have been helpful- lots of people clearly explaining what they did or didn't like with a restaurant, and they've convinced me to take a chance on some places I've ended up loving.

I think the formatting on that is messed up from the latest "upgrade". Some restaurants are showing up 2-3 times in a row with the same info.

Thanks that was fixed - make sure to refresh from server (hold down shift and click refresh). PM me if you still see dupes and let me know your browser version. Thanks.

I have not had good luck with Yelp because of how it defines my zip code as also including Grayton Beach, which is like 20+ miles and one county away, and also tends to still list places that have been closed for years. But the Urban Spoon reviews have been helpful- lots of people clearly explaining what they did or didn't like with a restaurant, and they've convinced me to take a chance on some places I've ended up loving.

I like Yelp and Around Me when I travel. Our idea is that you should be able to get better inside info from locals and frequent visitors. So if somehow we're coming up short then we may need to encourage people to express honest and accurate feedback.

Every site has to moderate comments though.

It's not an easy thing...

Sometimes, it's a matter of taste - you like or don't like a place for reasons that others may or may not agree with.
Sometimes, the food is good and the service isn't.
Sometimes, the service is good and the food isn't.
Sometimes, everything hits the mark for your expectations, regardless of whether they were high or low.

Here's a thought - if the parking lot is full, a lot of people are finding that the place meets their expectations. For example, that's true of both Cafe 30A and Angelina's, two very different eateries in Seagrove.

Here's another thought - if there are consistently bad reviews of a place, then there must be a recurring problem. OFFH gets a lot of bad reviews (or at least they used to), all of which agreed on service and value.

Not everyone feels up to confronting the server or manager, no matter how tactfully. I'm fine with that. Post a review anyway. Just don't rant - it doesn't serve any useful purpose. There was an incident some months ago where a restaurant owner got wind of a bad review on SoWal, fixed the problem, and managed to get the original poster invited back to the restaurant. So, a post helped everyone - customer, owner, and forum members.

Merbel and Green Knight, I don't write much anymore because of your exact comments.

I feel your frustration. I use to post more both positive and every once in a while a less than positive post. And yes, I got blasted from way beyond, from a lot of people and some could not let it die. There was one post where I talked about how good I thought something was and one of the people that had blasted, reblasted, and reblasted me in more than one post blasted me again in a complete different post.

There are a few people that have to say something about everything and not always correct in what they state. I just shake my head and go on.

I am a foody. And really like a lot of the food down here and there are those that are just ok, not worth my time or money. I value others judgements on food and will try something at least once....possibly twice. I wish we could be more honest on here and not feel as though we knew ahead of time that we were going to be attacked.

Yelp and Urban Spoon are good along with a few others, just not as up to date and timely as this forum use to be. Funny story, once I left a review on a place and it went to filtered reviews, Yelp thought I was being paid or was related to the owners because I said something so nice (but they posted my pictures!!!!!)

I too wish people could talk about their experiences, not that the same is going to happen to them, or has ever happened to them, just alerting that it might happen. Forewarned is always better.........that being said "Osama" would still be alive.

As for talking to the owner/management/wait staff, it doesn't always work. I have done that here a couple of times and to no avail and then others it worked well.

Feel free to PM me and I will share true thoughts with you anytime.

Good luck and move on down or over full time.

Just because someone doesn't agree with your assessment and counters your opinion doesn't mean you have been "attacked". If you are going to voice your opinion, and you are welcome to, then you should allow others the same courtesy.

My take is that when I have something really terrific to share about a restaurant, or a shop, or anything locally, I like to share it with everyone here. If I don't like it, I don't share it - my silence (along with my lack of giving them any further business) is a lack of support, and for me that is enough. I will occasionally have something to gently say about a place I care about - if I have a concern. If I don't care about a place - then why should I offer comment? And I definitely do rate all that I can! There isn't any reason for members not to share their opinions, whether positive or negative, as long as its respectful. And, then you have to be okay with the fact that some will agree, and some will not - we all have a very wide range of experiences and expectations.

I ask for a take-out menu, grade every dish I have had, pointing out strengths and weaknesses, and give it to the manager before I leave. It's the professor in me. It has make a difference in at least one restaurant that was using too much salt and no longer does.

I ask for a take-out menu, grade every dish I have had, pointing out strengths and weaknesses, and give it to the manager before I leave. It's the professor in me. It has make a difference in at least one restaurant that was using too much salt and no longer does.

now, that is feedback! good idea. I've not returned to restaurants due to crappy fries. should have left them an evaluation!

My wife has what I consider a "fail safe" method of picking a restaurant in a strange town where there is no one to advise us. If the parking lot is full, and it is lunch or dinner time, we stop. It works 99% of the time. It works particularly well with bar-b-que places. I am not hesitant to post bad experiences where I live. Being extremely frugal and careful with my funds, I want people who come here and put out good money to be happy with their choice. It is up to the eatery to make sure I am pleased and I will let others know it. I also realize that different folks have different tastes, so what pleases me and my wife may not please others. Having lived all over the world, my tastes are quite varied. Usually, most good places have enough variety on the menu to make up for differences in tastes.
We also operate on the 3 strikes and you're out theory. Occasionally it only takes two. There are many great restaurants in our area and we are indeed fortunate. I can remember when that was not true. My feeling regarding dining out, is post what you have experienced and why you think it is appropriate. I shall continue to do so.