jaymar01

A famous restaurant in NYC decided to hire a firm to figure out why they kept getting bad reviews. What this firm discovered is quite interesting. Below is a transcript that the restaurant posted on Craigslist after they discovered what it was:

http://themetapicture.com/people-kep...hey-found-out/

jspira

Having witnessed behavior like this in person - compounded with 15 years as chief analyst at a think tank studying the problem of Information Overload - this doesn't surprise me at all.

What does surprise me is the fact that someone was able to make this kind of comparison - it's amazing that any of the tapes were located from over a decade ago and it has provided invaluable insights on a major shift in how people comport themselves.

Homer15

A third of people take picture of their food and over half ask the wait staff to take their picture? That does not sound like avg restaurant behavior to me (at least outside NY?).

paul4040

It sounds like a publicity stunt to me.

wrp96

I thought the same - except that the article specifically mentioned it was popular with tourists, so that makes a lot more sense.

jologolf212

+1^

The thing that surprises me the most is the fact that they can come to this conclusion based on viewing 45 customers in 1 day, then doing it again 10 years later, again based on 1 day's viewing.

Im no rocket scientist or a consultant but off the top of my head i would think you should probably view a lot more tape.

Kagehitokiri

seems some posting in this thread are not foodies and have not kept up with the foodie scene. (especially but not limited to young foodies.)

and occasionally people will tell me nothing has changed at all. right.

i might seek out restaurants that do not allow photos (and or cell phones) in the future. how to find them? look for people complaining about them not being allowed.

chgoeditor

I'm convinced this "study" is bogus. I posted my thoughts to a food-specific message board.

ETA: I'm not sure how this could be a publicity stunt, since the post never mentioned the name of the restaurant.

Kagehitokiri

chgoeditor, chicago may not be as bad. some foodie blogs are crazy.

i literally just emailed this to a friend in NYC, who replied saying he refuses to go to trendy LES restaurants on fri/sat because of the dining crowd.

Need

I think they found out the truth... "This Restaurant Sucked" If the average customer (today) spent 2 hours in a meal, then you adjust to it. Keep up or get left behind...

FLLDL

zero chance that this actually happened.

sfoactuary

I'm calling bogus on the "study" as well, but given that one my blog's primary topics is food, I'll fully admit that I'm totally guilty of this.

chgoeditor

A. If you think Chicago doesn't have a foodie culture, you haven't been to Chicago recently.

B. The restaurant claimed they were in/near Times Square. This "restaurant" (which I'm positive doesn't exist) isn't a trendy foodie destination. If anything, it's a place like Guy Fieri's tourist trap. (Which it's not.)

C. Read any number of the articles that have been written about this Craigslist post. Without fail, and regardless of where they are located, most commenters are calling BS.

D. Hello? Isn't this Flyertalk? I'm a little insulted that you assume/imply I have no experience dining in other cities!

(And I hope you know I'm just giving you grief. But I still stand by my conclusion that this post was bogus.)

Kagehitokiri

chgoeditor, you misread my post. i mentioned "crazy" and "foodie" but could have been more specific.

"as bad" - in terms of crazy 'foodies' ... "some foodie blogs are crazy." - i was only talking about the particular "foodies" who do not care if the food tastes good and spend more time photographing their food and talking about it (including over social media in real time) than eating it.

excuse my use of the word "crazy" as it was the first word that came to mind. i will be the first to agree it is an oversimplification that is probably not accurate, but i was going for brief, and failed.

i am not a foodie. (nor do i believe in identifying myself by labels.) i think i am always clear that i am only talking about certain foodies or the foodie "movement" - i am suspicious of ALL "movements" and many things that also add the word "culture" after them these days. new ones not historical.

if it is a tourist trap, the same principle can apply, except applying to tourists rather than foodies.

actually, wouldnt it be even worse? because people are not there for food, they are there to post to social media and take photos, thats it.

and i go back to >
absolutely agree 100%. the restaurant is irrelevant. this is talking about aspects of society including but not limited to social media. but then im a "big picture" person (different perspective) on these things.

re photo taking (and it happening / not happening in certain places) >

chgoeditor

I don't think I misread at all. Chicago has plenty of snap-happy foodies who upload pictures to Facebook before taking a single bite and then spend a lot of time dissecting the minutia of every single meal. Personally, I myself may have 47 photos from last week's meal at Next. But photographing food doesn't take 3 minutes per course. And troubleshooting a wifi connection doesn't take 5 minutes each unless you work for an internet company.