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What Am I Thinking About When I Review A Restaurant?

Since the inception of BiteSeeing.com in 2007, I’ve shared my reviews of restaurants, bars, and other assorted service-related establishments but have never qualified my perspective and approach. Now, as we re-introduce ourselves, I feel like I should reflect and clarify…

Being a Management Consultant kept me on the road every week, and for ten years I generally was not at home for Sunday lunch through breakfast on Friday mornings.

So what does this mean? I ate out a LOT! I ate most of my meals during that time period at restaurants. Good ones, bad ones, remarkable ones, and dreadful ones. I believe this experience gave me the skill to evaluate an establishment truly from the eye of the customer. In my business, an oft-used phrase is that “perception is reality”, so the old cliche’ “the customer is always right” is one that shouldn’t be ignored. It helps that I follow restaurant rescues and business re-invention topics and media. For example, I know from these studies that as a foundational business practice you should always be greeted by someone upon entering the front door of a restaurant. While not every restaurant I may consider a good one does this, all of the ones I consider great do.

I try to pay attention to a checklist of things like that as I gain an opinion based on my own experiences at any of the places that I offer a review.

Opinion forums are highly debatable and you may not agree that waiting 15 minutes for a glass of water and a menu are material enough points to ‘ding’ a restaurant on if the food is amazing, but I am taking a holistic approach to the business as a whole, again from the customer perspective and my personal experiences.

“After all, consistency and quality are key measurements of success in a variety of areas, so my experience should be the same as everyone else’s.”
BiteSeeing Owner

The checklist I run through is based on having a great experience, including:

  • Was I greeted at the door (Person, Sign)?
  • Was the greeting within 30 seconds?
  • Did I wait longer than it seemed like I needed to (Was the restaurant crowded or empty?)
  • Was the table clean/already set up? (Was the restaurant clean and decorated appropriately)
  • How long did I wait for a menu/water/server?
  • What did I think about the food choices in general? (Too many/few items, range of the items offered, pricing)
  • How long did it take to get an order in?
  • How long did it take the food to get the table?
  • Did we get everything we ordered?
  • How was the table service (water topped off, plates cleared)
  • How was the food/drinks (Quality)?
  • Was it easy to request a change or additional items?
  • Was the server friendly?
  • Was the server professional?
  • Did he/she seem educated on the menu, including ingredients and substitutions (or just reading off the menu?)
  • How was the experience of getting and paying for the tab?
  • Did other guests seem to be having a good time?
  • General, overall impression?
  • Pros & Cons

I hope this helps to dispel any speculation into my thought process for a particular scoring element, but please don’t hesitate to join the conversation if you have a differing experience or opinion…

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Hi! I'm Ralph, and I started BiteSeeing.com back in 2007 to share my favorite recipes, restaurants, and kitchen toys. I currently live in Chicago, IL with my very awesome and supportive wife Stacy. Other test subjects in our house are our Siamese cat Lexie and two Chihuahua's, Abigail & Franklin.

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