An article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (which I was directed to via this post on Eater) details how Dine garnered favorable reviews by giving away $1500 worth of food to Yelp! reviewers.
Obviously, this is pretty problematic. The whole purpose of Yelp! - and sites like it - is to get honest reviews by real people. It’s hard enough trying to figure out who has undisclosed ties to the restaurant (or, for that matter, irrelevant beef with them). Now we have to wonder if these people have literally been bought?*
I understand that Dine wants to court better reviews—I wasn’t over-the-moon when I reviewed it a while ago*, a reaction that seemed to be echoed around the city. But surely they could have found another way to raise their profile. For instance, they could…oh, I don’t know…put out better food.
* Only because it’s relevant do I feel the need to point out that Time Out reviews all restaurants anonymously and pays for everything we order.
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