I liked the idea of restaurant staff wearing T-shirts displaying bad reviews as noted by Alan in one of yesterday’s blogs. It shows a sense of humour which isn’t always apparent in the storms that can follow bad reviews.
After being on the receiving end of a particularly damning restaurant review, one chef laid siege to the Glasgow newspaper offices of the reviewer in question. The chef had obviously been using a lot of cooking sherry that day as he thought that the best way to settle the affair would be to challenge the reviewer to a fight.
Much more common are furious emails and letters to the editor calling into question the reviewer’s parenthood, integrity and ability to distinguish between their artichoke and their elbow.
Other restaurateurs opt for more public revenge. Miffed by a bad review, one Edinburgh bar chalked up their own verdict on the reviewer on their street blackboard. Their scathing indictment ended with the damning assertion that Mr X ‘wears women’s panties’.
Years ago, I had a rotten meal in a restaurant and dished up a correspondingly unhappy review. The restaurant owner retaliated by blowing up my byline picture and having it made into a door mat so that his customers could wipe their feet on my face. Almost a decade later that still makes me laugh but I also feel relieved that the restaurateur had not found some one who could print my picture on toilet paper.