Tag Archives: restaurant

When the Crowd is Wise

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What happens when an Italian restaurant in Washington, DC gets 80 bad Yelp reviews and boasts a one-star rating? The Washington Post sends out a writer to see if it’s a case of “Yelp bullying” or if the poor reviews are earned. Based on the resulting story I’d say there was some wisdom from this Yelp crowd:

You could argue that Pasta Italiana, like that tackling dummy, has been designed for abuse. The place sets itself up for a fight before you take a bite: It trumpets the word “organic” on the front door. Its wait staff may or may not, depending on whom you ask, claim the pasta is made in-house.

The place all but has a “Kick Me” sign taped to its back.

And kick it you will once the food arrives. The garlic-cream sauce draped over flabby, overcooked cheese ravioli was chunky and lukewarm; if there was garlic in the sauce, only a beagle could detect it. The gnocchi was a mountain of gluey pasta covered in a meat sauce many degrees shy of hot; the gnocchi sat on the plate, solid and immovable, as if molded from clay. The lobster ravioli came stuffed with a stringy mixture speckled with tiny dices of the advertised crustacean but tasting more like crab sticks.

Sounds like you can safely keep this one off your dinner list the next time you’re in DC.

My Hero

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When our kids were little they screamed all the time and when they screamed in restaurants or stores we'd get them to hush or take them outside to keep from annoying the other patrons.  We'd also use the opportunity to give them some in-depth instruction as to why screaming in a restaurant wasn't cool with us.  You can imagine that it annoys me to no end when other parents don't do the same, but sit there and let their kids rant and rave and run around like a bunch of banshees.  Having suffered through more of those little heathens' behavior than I care to remember I read this story and almost jumped out of my chair while screaming YESSSSSS!

The owner of a coastal restaurant is fed up with screaming children who bother other diners.

So Brenda Armes has posted signs at Olde Salty restaurant in Carolina Beach that read "Screaming children will not be tolerated." She told WECT-TV in Wilmington that the signs have worked by attracting more customers than they turn away…

If a child is screaming, Armes says, a restaurant employee will ask the parent to take the child outside. The child won't be asked to leave the restaurant for good.