Fine dining restaurants researching guests to make their dinner unforgettable
sfgate.com
sfgate.com
One day the scholar visted my city to give a lecture, and I seriously considered attending and causing some type of trouble.
But whatever fun I would have it’s not worth sitting through a lecture on some chemical process in the lower blah blah blah blah.
My last name is historically Mediterranean, but has become extinct in its place of origin.
However some 20th century spelling reforms resulted in Germans and Scandinavians having identically spelled last names.
This makes it very hard to identify the ethnicity of someone who has it.
Very unlikely we are related.
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-how-to-make-the-bes...
The reason people come back from overseas trips raving about some cute little trattoria or izakaya joint is rarely because the owner sponsored a penguin, but more because the host achieved a genuinely human connection with the diner.
During my visit the team were super attentive and conversational and picked up on insanely small details. I’m sure if you weren’t a person of note, you’ll still get the same service but they have a different starting point to deliver it.
Service is a big component of being a Michelin starred restaurant.
There’s no point in expecting a homogeneous experience here.
The deeper reason is probably, machines are following rules, and they do it equally, focus on their specific job, without any hidden agenda. Humans are different, they have personal opinions and their own agenda, they can even be abusive. This is taking control from the people, and many people don't like losing control.
Life isn't a series of black or white choices, but full of multifacetted grey areas where some bad will always be mixed in with the good.
I can very much dislike restaurants sleuthing me even if I have sites with add revenue.
I do not care for their imagined 'marginal service improvent potential'. For excellent service and good food, you do not need to know anything about me beyond my reservation and any food allergies me or my party might volunteer.
So yes you're a hypocrite, but no one really cares--most people are.
His suggestion was to have staff listen to conversations (and have conversations with guests) and then record any interesting "dots" like a child having a graduation coming up or an anniversary just around the corner. That way on their next visit the staff could be well-prepared.
Click-bait headline makes you think otherwise, but this is just standard hospitality stuff.
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitalit...
I was at a restaurant a while back and looked over at the hostess' iPad. It had my Twitter avatar on it. I never told them my Twitter handle, but it is associated with the email I used. Do public musings count as telling someone something?
Maybe the next restaurant you (the personal you) go to will look up your email address, find this post and just serve you food.
The defense is that it's to make the experience better, the reaction is that it won't...
I didn't say I don't want them to read them. I said I don't want them to provide me evidence that they read them.
I saw you enter your apartment, it's public information. But I bet you'd feel pretty unsafe hearing that.
It's so standard that it's actually part of the training at that universally-known 0 michelin star italian travesty, the olive garden. When I worked there we called it "surprise and delight" because I'm sure if we called it collecting the dots we had to pay Danny Meyer. We were taught to observe our guests and even ask some questions in order to gather intel and then confer w the MoD in order to brainstorm ways to make the guest's visit special. We didn't have the resources to do things like the Pequod's scene from The Bear but what we could do we took great pride in doing. Our store was in the area where a soup called stellini is available. It's basically a chicken noodle soup w little pasta stars, spinach and meatballs, derived from a Pittsburgh-area specialty called wedding soup. Idk who in an olive garden in another state let slip that their large party was from Pittsburgh but the GM from that store called us and we overnighted a bunch of stellini to that restaurant (at corporate's expense, of course) just so they could have the same experience at this other store that they do at home.
Anyone in service-oriented business is or ought to be familiar with the general concepts. I have a whiteboard next to my desk with the names and ages of people's kids.
And for those worried about the creepiness of it all, privacy and discretion are also core concepts of service/hospitality when done well.
Aside from telling the host that you're celebrating your birthday or an anniversary when you make the reservation and getting a special dessert for the occasion, have you ever been at a restaurant where such dots were collected, connected and acted upon?
I haven't, and I've been to 1 & 2 star restaurants.
Hint: It starts with an N and rhymes with arsonist.
It's a strategy chosen over others and in many cases it works, in others, not so much.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it" -- Upton Sinclair
Tech people are many orders of magnitude more likely to be getting paid to be "the creeps" by targeting the advertising.
After that system collapses techbros dismissing privacy as a niche concern will be seen as a dangerous relic of less civilized age.
Walking in, everyone was treated like family and the regulars treated as close family they actually liked (the next level up).
There's always been more to good restaurants than just the food.
People back then could guess how some information about them "leaked" through gossip, and must have known about what's written in the paper about them. If someone found out that a restaurant has info about them that they thought is 100% private then they would find it creepy too.
Today information about people is stolen from people. Information people assume is 100% private, everything they do on the internet (and even many offline things) even without explicitly "posting" or talking about it ends up corelated by some data broker and sold to the least likeable parties. Having this kind of information even when obtained more legitimately just feels like spying to people and is creepy or repulsive by association.
For any restaurant most of this info is passed on by family to make the experience of the event (birthday, anniversary, etc.) more enjoyable. A regular customer celebrating something probably expects and enjoys some level of familiarity and won't ask too many questions or feel betrayed.
From the article, having a CRM, checking public social media, and getting info from the guests themselves is probably fine and even expected for all but a few exceptions.
I like opera and I like metal but while both are music, it is a completely different live musical experience.
If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions. Plenty of "normal" people don't want this either. The thoughts mean more coming from your friends than a creepy restaurant.
If I was talking to a group of friends in real life, and I realized someone in the group was developing an obsession and closely keeping track of everything I said and subjecting it to endless scrutiny, I would be super creeped out. Even though they had every legal right to do that.
I understand that to some extent my friends build a profile of me in their heads and use it to anticipate like, if I want to go to an event with them. But that's not really a difference of degree, there's a phase change when it becomes an obsession and it becomes a difference of kind.
Similarly sometimes retail workers get to know my taste and will point out some item I would be interested in. Sometimes that makes me uncomfortable, but because I'm shy, not because they did anything wrong. If I learned they were reading my social media profile, it would start feeling uncomfortably close to the plot of The Menu.
That's honestly their problem, not the social media's, which clearly ask you whether you want certain content public or private and also remind you to update your privacy settings every few months. Your analogy is not correct, it's more akin to speaking in a public forum within earshot of others then getting weirded out that other people can hear you for some reason; go to a private place if you want a private conversation. It's not an actual moral issue, it's a misunderstanding of public vs private in the first place, which causes those in your example to think it's a moral issue.
It's not a moral issue but it is an ethical issue. I meant morally as in "in spirit" even if it's not illegal. Sorry if that was confusing wording.
(For what it's worth, this behavior of restaurants is not on my radar as a priority, and I'm making no calls to action. I was responding to GP's confusion and trying to provide an explanation. I wouldn't support legislation to make it illegal for restaurants to Google you or something.)
Were they authorized to do that? Sure. Is that creepy? Most people would find that creepy.
Everyone knows you could read every post that they ever put out there. There is an expectation that you know that's inappropriate.
I know that if I engage in discussion on the Internet, there's a good chance someone is going to get bent out of shape about something pretty innocuous I said. They have every right to do so. I still think they're a jerk every time. Is that a me problem? It's something I accept as a cost of doing business, but I think it's actually a them problem. (You've been perfectly civil, this isn't throwing shade, just an example I thought all of us could relate to.)
It is generally understood that we are able to do things that we probably shouldn't. Civil inattention makes the world go round.
Do not expect privacy in a public forum, it is simply not how the world works and thinking otherwise just sets you up for disappointment, or even worse, actual harm (say, a stalker seeing your complete address because you did not deign to make that information private). I really don't get why people argue about this concept, the solution is literally right there to fix but it seems that people perform mental gymnastics to not fix the root issue but instead call it a host of names like "creepy," an "expectation" of being "inappropriate," "being a jerk," a "moral issue," or "unethical." No, just fix the damn problem once and for all and be done with it.
I took "confusion" in the original comment to mean "I'm curious why this is." You seem to be saying you "don't get it" to mean that they're stupid for making different decisions about the cost versus benefit of social media use, or for wanting to reduce that cost. Again, just not something I'm interested in discussing further.
Relating to your second paragraph, it seems, at least to me, that the answer to "I'm curious why this is" is genuinely related to ignorance or lack of interest in changing their privacy settings, rather them them being stupid per se (if you want to define "stupid" to mean so, then I guess you can but that's not my intention).
I'm aware.
> [What] is your opinion
I don't feel the need to repeat myself, but you may refer to this comment, and if you have specific questions I'm happy to answer them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44555009
> ignorance
Similarly.
Any disagreements I have seen to the contrary on these threads seem to be just another example of my point being proven (as no one has really brought up any good reasoning to why they equate real life to social media), as it seems people here cannot think of themselves as merely a vocal minority not representative of the larger population.
The point about technologists is not meant to be patronizing, it's a trend I've seen. The article itself shows that people seem to be "mind blown" by such restaurant social media stalking, but I doubt they'd be so if a restaurant followed them around in person.
Hence, I see evidence of the two types of interactions being different while I do not see any evidence, in this thread or others, of them being the same, that is why I made the top level comment that I did.
Anyway, this is becoming a long thread and I don't think there's much to be said further on my side. I hope you have a good day.
Everyone I know has dove into the social histories of new dates, friends, coworkers, etc. I simply cannot believe that the "normal public" doesn't recognize that their behavior, which they discuss with friends, can be replicated by others.
You can know about a downside to doing something, still decide to do it, and still publicly say that there shouldn't be that downside. That doesn't even make you a hypocrite.
Sometimes I drive places. I know that it's dangerous. I accept that risk. But I'll still say people shouldn't be reckless drivers and that we should make the roads safer.
And I certainly am not, by accepting the risk of driving, giving someone permission to drive drunk and wreck into me. That'd be a crazy interpretation, right? So what's the difference here?
I'm talking specifically about restaurant stalking, not all of the mechanisms of social media.
> I also don't see how you can simultaneously argue they're aware of it and okay with it, but also their position is founded in their ignorance.
Wrong person, I am clarifying vineyardmike's point, not my own. Even still, one can know something in the abstract, that their profile can also be stalked, but not in the particulars, that someone they dislike is actively stalking them.
There are clearly different degrees to which information that is presented in a public space is expected to be disseminated to strangers. Simply being "made public" doesn't necessarily invite invasive spying on every detail of your public actions
Exactly, there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, so your friends should go to a private place if they want a private conversation (and similarly not have public social media profiles), not talking within earshot of others and expecting privacy, that people would close their ears while one talks. Restaurants, stores, and other such areas are explicitly not private places, I can't tell you the number of times I can hear embarrassing stories with no extra effort in my part, simply because people talk loud enough to hear.
That is exactly what I'm saying so I'm not sure we disagree. Don't put things on social media you don't want people to see, or at least make your profiles private, because people can and will look and you can't expect otherwise.
We certainly agree that social media and in-person conversations in public spaces have the same expectation of privacy, but that's not the point I'm getting at.
What I am asking is, don't you think it would be considered inappropriate to spy on such conversations even though it's technically and legally possible to do so?
Our judgments as to what is considered socially acceptable behaviour aren't strictly ruled by what is technically or legally possible, nor should they be.
If the goal is to attract and keep patrons, especially at a high end restaurant where details matter, I think some formalities are still reasonably expected.
Read the article, this sort of social media profile research is what people like, and this is what attracts and keeps patrons, memorable experiences versus not. Again, this is why I said normal people don't care, only on HN do I see argument about this.
> If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions.
No, it doesn't, and I don't see how you came to the conclusion that if a restaurant had to scan my social media that it says anything about how I socialize. People don't just socialize only on social media, you know.
If my friends care, they will know what to surprise me with better than someone who glanced online as a rote part of their job.
But I have absolutely no problem with haute cuisine restaurants doing this.
There's a few reasons that make this special, and in a completely different universe than being tracked online.
1. Most people, my wife and I included, seldom go to haute cuisine restaurants. When we do, it is a very special, once in a lifetime experience.
2. Restaurants are not staffed by hackers and advertising engineers. They are going to start with opt-in questionnaires that you will fill out when you make your reservation. That questionnaire will often come in one of two forms: a) they will just ask you verbally when you phone or b) they'll send you a package when you make your reservation. That package is usually pretty special unto itself. It's going to feel like a welcome package, and they are going to invite you to share anything that you think is helpful, entirely voluntarily. Typically they'll ask about food preferences and dietary restrictions... but I mean, they'll get a lot just by giving you a text field that asks "Are you celebrating a special occasion, or anything else you want to share?" You're free to put whatever you want in there, and leave anything else out.
3. Now we get to the social media part. This is doing a little bit extra above what most haute cuisines have done in the past. But remember - they can only find what you make public. They're not like, DM'ing people on your friends' lists etc. or hiring a private investigator to stalk you.
Once you're in the door, the idea of remembering that you were there before and jotting down your preferences etc. so that if you return they can make you feel even that more special... this isn't McDonald's, or even a fancy steak house, that we're talking about. This is a place that most people - if they go at all - are going to go ONCE. So people who return are extremely special and to show them that level of "we give a fuck about you" is what sets these restaurants apart.
One experience that my wife and I had was at Victoria & Albert's at Disney's Grand Floridian resort. We spent $2,000 on that meal. Why? Because it was our belated honeymoon. We were highschool sweethearts, got married and had kids really young and were extremely poor for most of our marriage... so we saved up and it was once in a lifetime. For that money... this level of service is a huge part of how they go above and beyond to make their patrons feel like it's worth it. If most people felt freaked out by it, that some personal boundary was being crossed ... it would be the last thing they do. But they realize that your typical dining experience is pretty impersonal. That if you're going to shell out that much money on a dinner... it needs to be more than just the world's best food.
And this, "they can only find what you make public. They're not like, DM'ing people on your friends' lists etc. or hiring a private investigator to stalk you," has been exactly what I've been saying on this thread too, but somehow people think they should be able to keep their profile public yet not have people read through it; that's literally what the word public means.
In the past your spouse or kid would call and let the maitre'd know it was special; now I guess it's a job for someone on staff.
"funny, you were all fine with this when X was doing it as evidenced in <cites specific comments>, care to explain why this is different?".
"Imagine this: A guest walks into your hotel. The front desk greets them by name, already knows they prefer a room away from the elevator, and offers a complimentary drink, the same cocktail they ordered at your rooftop bar during their last stay. At breakfast the waiter suggests asks if the guest wants the usual omelet or the menu to try something new, and at checkout, they’re offered a late checkout because their flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m.
That’s not sci-fi. That’s what happens when your guest data systems actually talk to each other."[2]
[1] https://www.hungerrush.com/restaurant-marketing-loyalty/the-...
> at checkout, they’re offered a late checkout because their flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m
This would honestly be amazing. Most hotels I've seen don't even want to clean the room as often, and try to minimize the need for front-desk staff.
Everyone hand-wringing over this forgets that learning about you is one thing, but using it requires spending money on making the guest happy, and most businesses won't do that, so they won't pay to collect and process that info.
Imagine making reservations for a family dinner but being turned away at the door because the restaurant found a post (in support/critical) of Trump or one of his policies. The restaurant would be completely within its rights to do so, even if it seems a stupid and pointless business decision to cut clientele in half.
He’s also very politically outspoken on social media. I have suggested, to no avail, that he tone it down. This may do the trick.
There’s a price to be paid for being on stage, all the time. I wonder how many people have lost (or failed to get) jobs, because of stuff they’ve posted on LinkedIn (or here). I know a couple of teachers lost jobs, because they posted pictures of themselves, on vacation, with drinks in their hands.
To be fair, though, this chap is just a bit left of Mao Zhedong. He posts shit on Facebook, like ACAB. He thought that because he has his rantings restricted to friends-only, they will somehow stay sequestered.
That's interesting then, how did the landlord find out, through a mutual friend?
I see shit copied and pasted from people's private Facebook feeds all the time.
No, there's a price to be paid for espousing values outside of the Overton Window - and there always will be in the absence of continuously exercised civil rights.
The last time there was this level of collective punishment and erosion of civil rights (with self-policing sycophants pleading for clemency with the abusers) it was known as McCarthyism. Given that McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, was Trump’s core mentor and lodestone on the American Real Politik, it's easy to chart the ideological fingerprints across the decades.
Clay Risen’s book 'Red Scare' represents a comprehensive overview of the many mechanisms of repression that made the Red Scare possible - from executive orders and congressional-committee hearings to conservative control of vital media outlets - all of which can be directly mapped to the actions of the current cabinet.
//I wonder how many people have lost (or failed to get) jobs, because of stuff they’ve posted on LinkedIn (or here). I know a couple of teachers lost jobs, because they posted pictures of themselves, on vacation, with drinks in their hands.
It starts with the public 'admissions', the low-hanging fruit. Then you get the private investigators leaning on soft-sources for anything that can use as dirt or parallel construction.
The FBI had the Responsibilities Program - where they would share information with PTAs and local school boards. You know: ‘This teacher has a background that’s kind of suspect,’ ‘Here’s a list of books that you want to remove from your library.’
How long until the photo used as grounds-for-termination contains a same-sex couple, or a possible illegal immigrant, or Jerome Powell?
I don’t get it. Is the slippery slope that irresistible? Like should I be opposed to all good things in reality because jt is possible to imagine someone pointlessly doing a strange riff on them that I wouldn’t like?
I know that high-end restaurants there get extreme in service. That can make me uncomfortable in certain contexts.
https://archive.ph/o/S25jP/https://cdn.digg.com/wp-content/u...
I see what you did there.
Somehow I don’t think OP actually read the article before commenting.
Every second counts.
Literally a tiny island that people travel to and stay at the inn just to eat dinner. When you're there, it appears that the staff outnumber patrons about two to one.
My wife and I went there for an anniversary dinner (and breakfast the next morning). It was an incredible experience. Certainly the best meal of my life and one of the best evenings.
But I watched The Menu later and that movie hit a little too close to home.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/willows-inn-closed-allegati...
I totally support voting with your wallet
I don't really understand the outcome that people want to occur with cancelled people. Ostracized from society ... permanently? What we have now where its not thought out at all but some kind of professional harm is put on a pedestal as accountability?
which is par for the course for sfgate/chronicle
If a restaurateur and/or the head chef has any pretensions of greatness, then they must master two French dishes, Coq au Vin, and Boeuf Bourguignon.
Before investing in anything else, these are tollgates.
They are also both dishes that are highly forgiving. You can elevate them by replacing the vegetables used in the braise with precisely cooked ones in the final product, by balancing the braising liquid properly, and by getting the final braising liquid to the right consistency but this is largely procedural and involves balancing fewer different elements than sauces that involve spiciness in addition to sweet, sour, and savory.
If you want flexibility, ask someone to master ramen and filo dough.
I've had experiences where the counter staff at my daily breakfast place started to recognize me and know what "usual" my order was going to be without my having to say it... and it really weirded me out more than anything else.
Sometimes I just want to be a faceless nobody, forgotten day after day by the businesses I visit and the public spaces I navigate.
Have friends who work at the Four Seasons. This—low service interaction—is a common type of personalised attention patrons want.
I don’t think there is a social media cue for it. But even as someone who’s fairly extroverted, I got a note indicating I should be left alone if dining alone and reading.
Japanese customer service ("omotenashi") is mostly about not listening to your customers. You get exactly what they want to give you and that's it. If you have a dietary restriction they may just kick you out because they won't/can't change the menu.
But Japanese businesses can be very risk-avoidant, so they're relatively happy to not make a sale if it could possibly cause any trouble, compared to what Westerners might expect.
Edit: removed Bear comment as I misread the article.
The article itself is about how restaurants have gone above and beyond for some guests where they've been able to tell from their social media that they're celebrating a special occasion or some other thing like that. To make the guests' experience better and memorable.
There's a privacy angle to this, should restaurants do that, slippery slope, etc etc... but many of the comments aren't talking about that. They're responding to the inflammatory title.
I don't think we often get such a clear picture into the why behind online outrage and how clearly manufactured it can often be. I think it's easy to believe people are angry for a good reason, to take the anger "on good faith" in some sense. In this case, with the title being so far from the article, it's clear to see what's going on. And makes one wonder about the rest of the outrage out there.
The other half of the reason was that I really did think it was an interesting article. But having to keep the title the same was a fascinating social experiment.
Well, we’ve entered a period in manufactured outrage on the internet where an audience is primed ahead of time with talking points and perspectives that are deemed allowed, and then these reflexes are triggered over and over by the same kind of articles. And it’s the frenzy that counts.
It used to be confined to FB and other places but the average commenter has changed and so the average commentary has changed.
Articles are increasingly becoming rage bait, moreso than clickbait. I do not know what the appeal is yet but I imagine it’s some mixture of impulsivity that online commenting has enabled, combined with commenters thinking their take is valid/important/whatever. Maybe narcissistic but I can’t say for sure. At any rate, it’s another good way to destroy a community - especially one with self reinforcing mechanism like voting that basically ensures you’re on rails (with apologies to dhh)
Now if you will excuse, I see some clouds at which I need to shake my cane.
As we were chatting while waiting for the dessert, the whole restaurant started singing "Happy Birthday", as the waiter (and owner) came with the dessert, sparkler and all.
I sooo wanted to just disappear.
Turned out my mom had told the waiter/owner about the occasion, and he had unbeknownst to my mom gotten all the other guests in on it.
Nice thought, just totally not my thing.
I.e., like what Leslie Knope did for Run Swanson on his birthday.
I dare way there is a way to completely opt out of it as well.
I don't know about restaurants, but in regards to other kinds of silos, it is likely that those filters will go down once quality data availability becomes a problem.
In the restaurant analogy, you can say that if the salloon is empty, they'll let people in because they can't survive without them.
There is no filtering of people, its just looking at what people's tastes might be.
We're talking about a fancy restaurant that researches you and your social media to better cater to you and make you feel "special". I think I'd prefer that this just be an extension of the velvet rope, bouncers have been around for ages, but this feels genuinely creepy.
> “The information is used as a precursor to gain more of an understanding of who our guests are,” general manager Akeel Shah explained to SFGATE. “We may not even use the information, but it gives us a better way to tailor the experience and make it memorable.”
Eewwww, no. Just no. It really feels like someone watched 'The Menu', missed the entire point of the movie, and just thought "Hey wouldn't it be neat if WE knew everything about our customers before they arrived?"
...Now that's probably using restaurants as a metaphor for the film industry, but either way the point holds. I'm not put off by insincerity, it's forced, false intimacy as a product or a service goal that bothers me. Good food, good (not fawning) service is more than enough for me, I don't need this kind of race-to-the-bottom Michelin stars seem to inspire.
It's can be, at least anecdotally from people who work in prestigeous restaurants, i.e. places with year+ backlog. Owner/operator (frequently back of house) has strong politics and tell front of house to lose resos for certain client profiles.
> Kirk also has a gigantic database of each guest — about 115,000 people — and knows how many times they’ve dined at Lazy Bear since it first opened as a supper club in 2009. She then dives into social media and finds extra information that is publicly available to get a sense of who the guests are before they come in. Finally, she puts all the data she’s gathered into a color-coded Google document that every member of the team, front and back of house, studies.
“We get hundreds of emails a day, and the intimate details that some people are willing to share, sometimes we’re like ‘Holy crap. I can’t believe you told us that,’” Booth said. “But then there’s the fun, the literal joy, our team feels when they get to make these special touches with those details.”
--
That sounds great to me! I think some commenters are imagining a kind of Black Mirror meets Berghain meets social credit scenario, but it seems like really none of those things. Cynically, one could perhaps paint it as another clever way for Bay Area folks to convert capital into emotionally emulated human experiences, though even amongst that list I'd consider it one of the more wholesome.
But are tolerant that corporations do the exact same things in their society
(Thanks, Groucho)
(imagine I’m the dog sitting in the burning house saying this, it’s sarcasm)
Wouldn't be better for all concerned if a 2 star restaurant worked at providing better food and service instead of privacy invasion and exploitation of the vain?
If it's not for you, that's fine.
I don't think I'm alone in wanting the restaurant's personality to be just as much a part of the experience as my own personality. Otherwise, what makes this place more special than any other wanting to pull the same gimmicks?
And people would be thrilled by the customer experience their service created.
How? Like another sort of establishment that's not a restaurant?
Unless they are on the menu, penguins have no part in the restaurant's mission. It is simple pandering to those who psychologically crave attention. It is put forth as a substitute for the lack of better product and service.
If it's a manager who wants to use AI to maximize my engagement, fuck that.
The service is what people really pay for, and there I agree that there should be much more interesting ideas to elevate the experience than bringing in a baby penguin. I don't see anything in the article as particularly creative.
That point is still well up there. The difference between hours-picked tomatoes and Aramark sludge is worth paying for.
Absolutely none of these restaurants know who I am, do anything special for me, or even know my favorite dishes.
The only thing they have in common is they consistently make delicious tasting food. And they probably focus a lot on doing that. Its that simple.
Pretty much the only social media I participate in, is ... here. I guess the Bay Area might take HN seriously, but I live in NY.
If SMBs want to reject us, because we aren’t posting every meal on TikTok, then they only have themselves to blame.
You seem to think SMB rejecting you is only a problem for them, have you considered that them rejecting you also means that you don't get service from them?
Sorry if what I wrote, offended. Didn’t mean to.
So we’re done.