Everyone's a Critic..

My husband and I are celebrating (read: glad we're still open) our third year of our little BBQ shop.  Three years ago, he sold the restaurant he owned and I suggested we open a BBQ place since there is no good BBQ in the state.  So we found the space to lease, we bought the equipment, we did the build out ourselves and opened up in September of 2007.. Just in time for President Bush to announce the Country was 'officially' in a recession.  When he made that announcement the price of our food tripled over night and the roller coaster began.  We worked diligently, side by side, 80 hour work weeks (which, if you've ever spent a lot of time with your spouse you know that in itself is a feat), perfecting recipe's, dropping off menu's to local businesses, doing free samples, everything we could possibly think of to get our business some momentum.  That first year, no bullshit, was the hardest year of my life.  The second year we became the default caterer for the local high school, providing food for the concession stand for home football games (incidentally, the high school football team was the State's Champ for three years in a row), doing the food for the soccer, baseball, softball, basketball and swimming banquets.  That's when things became easier.  This business is our heart and soul.  We've put everything into it.  Blood, Sweat, Tears.. and lots, and lots of profanity.

I take it pretty personally when someone doesn't like our food.  And it's not that I expect everyone to love it the way I love it; but I am pretty proud of it having the reasonable expectation that there are moron's out there (a lot of morons out there) who wouldn't know great BBQ if a slab of ribs smacked them in the face.. That is fine with me, and if said moron's make me aware that they were not satisfied with their meal, that I try to make it up to them by suggesting something they might like or giving them a refund and apologize to them (for being a moron) and agree to disagree.  This doesn't happen very often which makes me think we are doing things alright.  That is, until the discovery of Yelp.com.  Oh, yes, there is a website dedicated for 'normal' people to sit behind their computer and put their opinions out there on the web for all to see.  And I hate it.  Most of you know that I hate people any way, but this website takes away the ability for me to make someone's experience more pleasant at my restaurant.  Instead of them complaining to me (and allowing me to try to fix it) they keep their comments to themselves to run home, get on their computer and tell the World what they thought of my food, my decor, my service, my bathrooms.  Is that really fair?  I don't expect for life to be fair, but what happened to just being... I dunno... Honest?  I know that not one person leaves my front door without being asked how their food was... and being thanked for their business.  Has our society turned us into such hateful beings that we do not desire others to succeed by giving constructive criticism?  I don't get it.  I really don't.  It drives me nuts and further fuels my "I hate people" attitude.

So.. This blog is dedicated to Yelp.com.. Opinions are like assholes and you've given all the assholes a forum to exhibit theirs.  Thank you.

That is all.