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The restaurant reviews are mainly from influencers
Online reviews can influence your decisions and make you trust local businesses more. Entrepreneurs know this and invest a great deal in this marketing tool whenever they want to make their online profiles more appealing to customers and boost sales.
Therefore, if you see a whole load of positive comments coming from all sorts of bloggers, journalists, and people who post reviews for a living, do a little more research before going for dinner at a certain restaurant. That’s because those people might have been offered free or discount meals and turned-up customer service in exchange for great reviews, but the actual dining experience might not be that great. “If you see influencers singing their praises on Instagram but find their Yelp reviews are questionable, this is a big indication of bad service,” warns Fabiana Meléndez, a publicist in Austin, Texas.
The bathroom isn’t clean
Cleanliness is next to godliness. A huge warning sign that the eatery might be a bad choice is a dirty bathroom. Nothing spells disregard and disinterest for customer comfort that a filthy, grimy and neglected bathroom. The level of cleanliness in a restaurant bathroom says a lot about the entire business, so when there’s no soap in the dispenser, no toilet paper and the floor is all wet, that’s your sign that the staff does not prioritize cleanliness.
This means other areas of the restaurant, such as the kitchen, are most likely to be just as dirty. “The restrooms serve as an immediate indication of the lack of attention to detail that can undermine food quality,” says Alan Guinn, a consultant in the restaurant industry for over 25 years.
