Restaurant owners tear apart ridiculous TripAdvisor review

When reading a negative review on TripAdvisor, most people engage their own judgement and decide 'They sound like a pain in the arse, I will go to this place anyway'.

Sadly, TripAdvisor is often a place for the whiners of the world to complain about unrelated problems, to the detriment of the business' overall rating.

In October, one such human moan-bag rocked up Rudy's Neapolitan Pizzeriain Manchester without a reservation, and was unable to get a table.

They felt compelled to leave this review of the restaurant.

Picture:

Arrived here at 7.45, after struggling to find a parking space, left at 7.48, after politely being told that there was no guarantees we would be served , due to the ovens being turned off at 9.30. It was packed with people sat evening, to be honest I travelled from Bollington to Manchester, and I won't try this place again.

Erm. Mate. It's 7.45 on a Saturday.

The 'reviewer', if you can call a person who didn't actually eat at the restaurant that, gave them a one star rating.

The owners of Rudy'sresponded.

Considering the Tripadvisor reviewer only wrote 60 mopey words, Jim Morgan and Kate Wilson, the owners of the pizzeria, responded by ripping apart the writer's argument slice by slice.

Peter, are you actually serious???

You do understand that we are a tiny independent restaurant right…and that you've just crucified us for being too busy? We can do absolutely nothing about the amount of time people wish to wait for a table here. On Saturday (the busiest night of the week for any restaurant!), it got to over two and a half hours wait for a table, correct. Most people are happy to wait and are in a queue so there must be a cut off for taking in more customers or we'd potentially be here until the early morning cooking if we didn't.

Just to clarify. We don't turn out ovens off at 9:30 p.m.. We close the kitchen... But this doesn't mean we stop cooking. On Saturday we were still cooking at 10:30 p.m.... And this was with customers who were in the queue before you. Does this really warrant you labeling our restaurant as terrible?? Trip advisor should be about eating the food and enjoying the atmosphere and service... But even though your only encounter with us was considered polite, you've used it to vent your anger at us for council parking, your geographical location prior to visiting us, and us being too busy to seat you???

I’m not sure there the is any restaurant in the whole of Manchester that I’d expect to rock up to at nearly 8 p.m. on a Saturday night and get seated straight away if I hadn’t booked or the restaurant didn’t take bookings.

Here's the scenario you would [have] liked. 'Hi Peter, oh, yeah let's just forget about these 200 people who were here in the queue before you... I feel [you're] likely to one star us so step this way and I'll seat you straight away'

We're very sorry for not having space to seat you.... But come on... try to support indys by accepting the scenario or even congratulating us on being so busy (like other customers who've been turned away have done) rather than trying to damage us using this stress inducing points based system website.

All the best

Jim and Kate

To their credit, the website for Rudy's explicitly states that they do not take bookings, what time the kitchen closes, and what time the last order is. A quick Google ahead of the journey from Bollington might have done the trick.

This is not the first time Morgan and Wilson have rebuked their negative reviewers on Tripadvisor. The pair have left similarly persuasive responses to most one star posts.

Speaking to Indy100, Jim cautioned against writing responses to reviews.

It was written in the heat of the moment (not recommended) out of pure frustration as we were on our way to the airport to take a short break after a year of non stop working. So to avoid the stress while away, I hurriedly typed it up so the negativity wouldn't stew in our brains. On reflection, I feel a bit harsh as you really should have a thicker skin working in this industry.... but unfortunately me and my girlfriend don't (who own and run the business) and take everything very personally as we've put so much of ourselves into this place.

He also stressed the problem with review sites such as Tripadvisor's for small independent businesses like Rudy's.

Its completely fair giving places low scores when things go wrong with service or the food is not up to scratch... everything has their opinion but Tripadvisor seems to be used as a tool for disgruntled customers to try and damage a business. We've had a few reviews from people who have not acually eaten here and these hurt the most. It's very easy for people to look at restaurants and believe they're run by people in suits sat in offices, but I'm usually sat in the kitchen covered in flour, typing away responses.

Jim said he and Kate were learning to ignore it.

The most annoying part of it is that overwhelmingly, we get such lovely, humbling and motivating reviews from people but as with anything, it's the negativity that takes all the attention.

HT Manchester Evening News

More: Facebook has a fake news problem. These students solved it in 36 hours​

More: If you've ever shared one of these images, you need to delete it immediately​