"Your Retort Reminds Me of a Little Boy Who's Whining Because Someone Doesn't Like You"

It's been a while since one of my famous rants, but here I go again. Yelp and other review sites can be helpful tools, but are also many times a way for customers to misrepresent a business and sometimes be downright mean. We generally perform well on the review sites, but lately it's been fairly quiet and the last two reviews about the Etto market have been unkind. Before you tell me don't worry about it - which is what I hear all the time - please listen.

It's not super cool when folks hide behind a computer (usually with a fake name) and say things they would never say in person like, "Your Retort Reminds Me of a Little Boy Who's Whining Because Someone Doesn't Like You". My response to this woman's review was to genuinely make things right. I offered a refund, explained that our team almost always takes the time to help our guests at the market and gave her my personal cell number as I usually do.  When something goes wrong we feel terrible and genuinely want to fix it.

 

This type incivility seems to be happening more and more on review sites, social media places like Facebook and Nextdoor and other spots where folks seem very comfortable typing insults into their phone or computer. Maybe before typing something ask yourself if you would say it to the person (me) standing right in front of you - my guess is no. I know many very talented chefs who never look at review sites for their own restaurants including our chef team at Etto Pasta Bar. 

 

The same woman who insulted me also told me that since I'm in the restaurant business I should be able to let comments I don't like roll off my back like water. As a proprietor of a small family business like ours where we've put everything we have into it we want opportunities to fix guest problems. She's suggesting that proprietors shouldn't have feelings. It's also never fun to have public comments that can harm our business without being given any chance for correction. We always want to do what's right by every guest - I'm sure everyone reading this email knows this, but last thing we want the world to think is we don't care about our customers which she and another reviewer implied.  

 

This previous reviewer, who left a 1-star review under a fictitious name (of course), accused us of shorting him products for a pickup order. We made an honest mistake and left an item out of his order. When we became aware of the situation we (mainly my wife Stephy) felt horrible and offered to drive the missing item to Los Osos. His wife told us to please not worry asked him to drive back by when he was in the area. He was so mad he decided to write a very inflammatory 1-star review. This review hit our inbox right at the start of a family vacation. It's hard for her not to take something like this a little personally because we care so much about our business. Hopefully that's one of the reasons you like Etto.

 

We've all suffered from horrible service, but unfortunately businesses also have some horrible customers too. It makes me sad that some people have so much anger that they feel comfortable treating others so poorly in public forums without any accountability. Sure I can take it but should I have to just because of a stale pack of ladyfingers?  Unfortunately I don't have a solution. Whatever happened to, "If you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all"?  Please, let's bring back some civility for the good of humanity.

 

Stay tuned for more rants soon but not too soon ...........Amazon next?

We are now pretty well stocked with our usual collection of unique and beautiful Italian Easter treats. They won't last too long so please visit soon and grab your favorite. I love the colomba which means "dove" in Italian. It's basically a dove shaped panettone and so fun to eat on Easter morning.