Meta: Review Score Sheet
Posted by mike | Filed under Meta
I recently received some comments on my excessively high star ratings. I tend to agree; it’s a problem. I general, I have a hard time being critical—especially when I’m looking for something that differs slightly from the norm. After all, I tend to be hugely supportive of independent restaurants and what they do for our city. Still, this is a problem that’s fairly easy to fix. In fact, I’ve taken my first swing at a solution: a review score sheet.
Guidelines for future reviews. Call it a rubric; call it a score sheet; call it whatever. The basic idea: I’ve split out four categories and assigned point totals to each. The point totals across all categories total up to 50 points—corresponding fairly well to my original 5-star ratings.
Setting (10 pts)
- Was seating confusing?
- Was the server friendly?
- Did you feel welcome?
- Was everything clean?
- Did the decor fit the category?
Menu (15 pts)
- Was there more than one item you wanted to order?
- Were there (multiple) vegetarian options?
- If they served beer, was the selection decent?
Food (15 pts)
- Did you get what you expected?
- Was the portion right-sized?
- Was it flavorful?
- Was it well-presented?
- Any unpleasant extremes?
Overall (10 pts)
- Were you happy you went?
- Were you smiling when you left?
- Do you want to go back?
- Do they deserve your support?
More rational scoring. It’s still possible to over-score, but this provides a little bit more visibility into how I arrive at my numbers. From this point forward, I’m making a point to calibrate the 50% mark to places that hit my expectations. Under the new system, a solid restaurant that just isn’t much to write home about should get a 25/50 (2.5 stars). A place with a great atmosphere and lackluster food might end up with slightly more or slightly less than the 25 rating, but it certainly won’t hit the 4 star mark that seems to be common. I’ll also try to identify a good format for presenting the breakdown, so whatever the score, you’ll have some idea of how I got there.
Smells like beer to me. For those of you coming from the beer world, this may look familiar. I picked up the idea from the score sheet that we use for that beer judge (BJCP) study group that I’m keeping up with. Given my notion for what makes a 21-point beer versus a 35-point, I’m hoping I’ll have the right frame of mind to give a 2.1-star rating in those places where I would feel guilty about scoring someone that low on the basis of stars alone. Without the guidelines, 2.1 just sounds cruel; with the guidelines, at least it makes sense.
I’m interested in feedback on the issue, so comment away and let me know what you think.
December 28th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Ya and how about you stop harping on the vegetarian options. If this was a vegetarian food blog then that could be understood, but it isn’t. Oh and going to places known for things other than salads and then ordering a salad is not a way to review it. Order the salad as well as the dishes that are key to the restaurant and review both for goodness sake.
I don’t find your reviews helpful, I’ve been to a few you’ve reviewed highly and found the food and service to be downright horrible. I only read the blog at this point to get a good laugh at the level of pretentious preening. If you can’t be critical then don’t be a reviewer, its that simple. I give this blog 1 star out of 5, for spelling.
December 28th, 2009 at 9:52 am
whoaa sarah…a little harsh.
I like the new score sheet you got going mike. keep up the good work
December 29th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
sarah sounds like a whack job – I’ve been reading since early summer, I eat out about 6-7 times a week if you combine lunch and dinner – so I’m not basing my opinion of the restaurants on that one time a week I get to go out and had a bad experience because my expectations are too high like sarah. Some people are never happy if you know what I mean.
I enjoy reading about new places and getting a feeling about what they are all about, and you have provided that wonderfully. The beer selection info is great. I liked your scoring system before. The feeling I got from the system was that each rating was geared towards what the restaurant set out to do.
The 509 Cafe is not a 4 star restaurant by the NY Times rating system and will never be, It also doesn’t make sense to give them one star, considering they are not attempting to be a 5 star restaurant, they are trying to be a cafe. A four star rating makes perfect sense, they obviously are doing what they set out to do and according to y.
Keep up the good work.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Swoosh/PKrundle: Thanks for defending me on this one. I think PKrundle is onto something with parsing what my scores mean. There are actually two competing issues: one is how well the restaurant did in filling the space it set out to fill (as in PKrundle’s observation). The other issue is how well the restaurant did in filling my needs/expectations. That’s why I lean toward a salad or some other veggie/healthy option. I want to know how well a given place fills that need.
Basically, If I walk out of a restaurant smiling, happy, and satisfied, then it really doesn’t matter that the food didn’t reach some global notion of 5-star dining. It pleased me, and if your tastes/expectations are anything like mine, I expect it will please you to.
That all said, Sarah’s feedback is useful. I have published ratings in the past that I would later regret. I could also stand to let the whole healthy/veggie thing slide a little bit more than I do. I have some loyal veggie followers, but other readers are likely to be interested in other parts of the menu.
December 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am
wow. yes, I might be a nut-job. My point is that if Mike’s goal is to be a vegetarian food reviewer then go with it and choose places that can be reviewed for their vegetarian options. If you want to mention that there aren’t many vegetarian options as a note to not recommend the restaurant to vegetarian friends. Talking about the lack or abundance of vegetarian options ad nausem when neither the reviewer nor the reader is a vegetarian is just annoying. Furthermore, one cannot expect to go to a meat and potatoes restaurant and expect a myriad of vegetarian options. I would certainly never take vegetarian friends to Mortons or Tessaros or similar. I know they wouldn’t have anything but plain salad to eat, and we could get far better than that at the Whole Foods salad bar.
I don’t eat out 30 times a month, perhaps I go out 2-5 times a month. Perhaps when you dine out every day as PKrundle does you don’t want quality every time. When you are choosy because it is very expensive as well as very diet unfriendly to go out every night you want a good experience at that restaurant. There have been many times when I’ve been to a restaurant and put down 20-40 for my meal, tax and tip and felt like I had just been robbed. I rely on reviews to make sure I don’t go to awful places. Hwen the reviewer likes absolutely everything how can I trust his reviews? YOu have to be harsh when places aren’t up to par. I am quite often pleased, I would say that on the contrary I am not hard to please at all.
THe reviews from Munch and City Paper are excellent. I have often listened to their reviews and walked away quite happy (with just one exception!). And restaurants I loved and later read the reviews were rated highly by City Paper (which is very choosy with which restaurants get a high rating) and those that I found OK or bleh were usually similarly rated by Munch and City Paper.
I just don’t see the point of wasting one’s time reviewing a restaurant if you’re not going to give a good review. ANd if someone rates something as 3 or 4 stars out of 5 and you go and find it to be a 1 star restaurant then you’ve wasted your time and money on the recommendation of someone who is unable to accurately criticize…
December 30th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
ok. i understand your point that you don’t like this blog, and you have every right not to like something. But if that is the case why do you continue to read it?
To be honest, im not a vegetarian so the points mike makes about the vegetarian option on the menu don’t really apply to me, but that doesn’t take away from the other good parts of his reviews. I like what he does with the beer reviews because i always look for places that have a good brew selection.
Remember, this is Mike’s own personal blog. He is not writing for the Post Gazette or some magazine. He has ever right to personalize his reviews to fit what he wants the ideals of his personal blog to reflect.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Sarah has a serious point here, and Mike, I think you owe her a complete refund.
The anonymous world of the web is full of people without the nerve to say things like this to your face. Maybe it’s time for moderated comments?
Keep doing what you’re doing, and doing it exactly how YOU want to do it.
Cheers,
Scott