Do Critics Still Matter?

Twenty years ago, a restaurant critic showing up at your restaurant had you popping a Xanax over a glass of wine. Before the age of social media, influencers, and online ratings, a glowing review from a major publication like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the San Francisco Chronicle could fill your books for three months straight — or leave you bleeding until the landlord locked the doors or the operating account had run dry. These days, that feels like a bit of a stretch, but still, those days weren’t that long ago. 

So the question stands: In an era of Google stars, OpenTable and Yelp Restaurant ratings, and viral TikToks — when everyone has an opinion about what you do and how you do it, and they share it publicly — do critics still matter? Let’s look briefly at how restaurant criticism has evolved over time.

There was a time, not long ago, when a handful of people controlled the restaurant world. Craig Claiborne pretty much invented the modern star system at the New York Times in the ’60s, and a single positive review from him could turn any French bistro into a sacred site overnight. Mimi Sheraton carried the torch through the ’70s and ’80s, and chefs dreaded her sarcasm the way most of us dread a tax audit. Ruth Reichl showed up in wigs and disguises in the ’90s, but she wasn’t there to play nice — she crowned Jean-Georges and Thomas Keller as culinary royalty while still destroying others. At New York Magazine, Gael Greene was part restaurant reviewer and part gossip columnist. In the 2000s Frank Bruni showed up on the scene, ushering in the celebrity-chef era. A three-star review could crown a king; a zero-star could sink a 5 million dollar opening right at its inception. Outside Manhattan, Jonathan Gold in L.A. and Phil Vettel in Chicago carried the same kind of weight. Gold did what no other critic did and gave street and ethnic food a much deserved mainstream spotlight. Vettel’s stars determined whether downtown diners took you seriously or passed altogether.

These weren't simply myths. A 1997 hospitality study showed that a single bad review could drag sales down for three straight months — that’s not a critique or an opinion, it’s fact. And the record is full of case studies. Pete Wells’s takedown of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant in 2012 became the most-read restaurant review in the history of the Times, a piece of criticism that lives forever in internet lore. On the flip side, you get Stanich’s in Portland, Ore., a burger joint that was crowned “best in America,” which then closed within five months because they couldn’t keep up with the crush of hungry tourists. Critics weren’t observers, they weren’t commentators. They were kingmakers and destroyers of worlds. 

That all blew up with the rise of Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google Reviews. It was no longer one critic in a wig sneaking into dinner, but hundreds of diners with camera phones and, for better or worse (usually worse), an opinion. The stars? They meant money. Harvard Business School showed a one-star bump on Yelp could push revenue up close to 10 percent. UC Berkeley found that as small as a half-star shift made a restaurant up to 19 percent more likely to sell out its prime-time tables.

For operators, that half-star could be the difference between paying your staff and turning off the lights. Unlike a single Pete Wells hit piece that lives for a news cycle, Yelp never goes away. Every meal has the potential for a new unsolicited review. Every guest is a critic. You don’t get to pass or fail once, you have to deal with it forever.

These ratings in turn have an impact on how a business shows up on a search engine, with higher star rating influencing where you show up in local search rankings, which is one of the primary ways consumers find places to dine.

If Yelp changed the game, TikTok and Instagram flipped it upside down. In 2021, @sistersnacking posted a positive review of Skirt Steak in Manhattan. The next day, 100 people were waiting in line prior to the restaurant opening. New York Nico, a popular NYC creator, posted a Coke Float video from the longstanding Lexington Candy Shop and sales tripled — and they’re still cashing in on it. Fatima’s Grill out in California took its TikTok fame and parlayed it into multiple locations.

It’s a simple formula, but random in its effectiveness: the right creator, the right dish, the right day. If all those factors align, the viral moment is a spark. What matters is whether an operator can catch it and keep it burning.

I would be remiss to leave out the ‘Keith Lee Effect,’ so named for the TikTok food reviewer with over 17 million followers on the platform. There is probably no one more influential to a business’s success today than Keith Lee. Numerous articles have been written about the mostly positive impact a good review from him can have, as well as the hate a poor review can bring. One might even argue that Keith Lee has more impact on businesses than the past handful of New York Times reviewers combined.

Not enough people talk about the Reservation platform review which, in my opinion, is probably the most important review. This is from someone that, for a fact, has been to the restaurant; there is a reservation associated with the review, there is a name. On OpenTable, you can read the reviews and there is an aggregate “rating” based on these reviews. Much like Google, your rating and number of reviews will affect where you show up in a search on their platform, and the better the rating, the higher you’ll show up in results.

Resy also has this. They do not post the reviews, but your ultimate rating will, much like OpenTable, affect where you show up in a search on their platform.   

A few decades ago, there were two primary ways you found out about restaurants: reviews and word of mouth. Now there are multiple voices on multiple platforms that cater to different demographics, and they’re all talking about the restaurant experience.

The way reviews are done at publications has been changing, and many have eliminated ratings completely. There has been, for the most part, a softer tone in many reviews. Many paint this as the end of the critic, but, let’s be real, critics aren’t gone. A good review from the right publication can still dramatically assist a restaurant opening, guarantee national attention, and bring the awards committees and Michelin inspectors snooping around. Critics still serve a purpose, and people still listen to their words and give them credence.

But the days of fear have somewhat subsided, starting in the early 2010s. In Los Angeles, a restaurateur recognized reviewer Irene Virbila waiting for a table, took a picture of her, then told her she was not welcome and they would not be honoring her reservation, citing her “unnecessarily cruel and irrational” reviews that “have caused hard-working people in this industry to lose their jobs.” 

In 2015, Pete Wells wrote a scathing review of Tex-Mex Restaurant Javelina. And in 2019 he went after revered steak house Peter Luger. In 2007, reviews like this would have been a death knell for any spot, but both restaurants are still open and seemingly doing well today. 

These days, critics have arguably shifted from being judge, jury, and executioner to more like archivists of restaurants. They’re still important and, let’s be honest, far more qualified than a jaded Yelp bro bitter that his Long Island Iced Tea wasn’t strong enough. For operators, the key is to pull useful insights from all reviews and be prepared for both the good and the bad. If your business is built right, you’ll be able to handle either.