Though technically I have an account, I have steered clear of Substack, which gives me the vibe of a methadone clinic for recovering Twitter addicts. The vertiginous dopamine highs of hundreds of likes and multi-thread comments have long gone. Instead, users administer tiny amounts of artisanal interactions to one another. Humblingly, a good part of the site is Dear Diary stuff. So many of the exchanges are from people who meet each other regularly in real life, the overall effect being reminiscent of couples commenting on each other’s Facebook posts while sharing a couch.

Even so, a lived experience Substack post comes along now and then that can be thought provoking (albeit without the pluralistic cacophony Twitter threads used to offer). One such example came the other day from Nick Gibson, owner of London gastropub The Drapers Arms. I recommend you read the whole post but, in short, Nick posted his reaction to a bad online review by a dissatisfied customer and asked a question that has turned perennial in our internet age: what do customers owe providers when they post online reviews? Are there any obligations at all, at least for basic decency or factual accuracy?

I’ll start by nailing my colours to the mast. I have been to The Drapers Arms a couple of times. The food is very good, the price-quality ratio excellent (especially for an N1 postcode), while the wine list is even better than Nick’s description of “very good value & exceptional for a pub”. It’s always in the top five places I recommend to wine-loving or wine-curious friends who visit London. I also have enormous respect for Nick, who has always expressed openly and proudly political views, such as against Brexit and the far right, which I share . This is a business risk few are willing to take, especially in such a competitive sector. As for the reviewer, who apparently only talks to “senior management”, he sounds like the type of person you wouldn’t want to share a lift ride to the first floor with, let alone have as a customer. I also feel for Nick on a personal level: reading a bad, unfair review just before bed. Argh. So, from a taking sides perspective, there is no doubt where I stand. This is an entitled customer, who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and I wish Nick had the Zen-like control required to just ignore it entirely and roll off to sleep.

And yet.

It was fascinating to read something with which you agree on everything about the facts and with nothing about the framing. This is not Nick’s framing by the way; it is interesting to me because it reflects most of what I hear from the entire hospitality industry. It also seems to be shared by all professional or semi-professional commentators and hangers-on. So, for what it’s worth, here is a dissenting view.

I am always impressed with how much restaurateurs seem to expect from their customers, or what they consider “fair”. It starts with the level of expertise they require before someone gets to comment. Now, I happen to think that the Drapers wine list is exceptional value, but I’m not sure I would make the point outside a very limited wine circle. I confess, I chuckled at Nick’s go-to argument being how well priced the Biondi Santi 2010 is (“of course my car dealership isn’t elitist – I sell the cheapest Lamborghinis in town!!”).

The expectations restaurateurs seem to have on how much work customers have to do are impressive. Do they need to publicise, in detail, all their positive experiences, before commenting on a bad one? I had always assumed my business obligations towards the restaurant finished on paying my bill. I hadn’t realised fairness included doing some marketing work for them pro bono. This is particularly amusing for me because, of the dining scenes I am familiar with, the British one is the least generous by a far margin. No matter the bill or the frequency of visits, getting even the most basic thing on the house in the UK seems to be an honour akin to receiving a Knighthood. (Instead, it appears the onus is on the customer to know the going market rate for langoustines and be appropriately thankful for their pricing.)

Similarly for raising any concerns at the time they happen and not post facto. I kind of get why owners would like that, but I practically never do it (the exceptions are when I know the owner very well and I feel I’m in a safe space). Here is an incomplete list of more and less rational reasons: some owners might like it, but others might not; I might get pushback from the server; a cook might get angry and spit in my omelette; I might get someone in trouble; my fellow diners might think I’m putting on airs; I’ll be out of sync with the eating pace of the rest of the group. But, mostly, it kind of feels like work. I’m not there for a collaborative effort in achieving my desired meal (Should I ask them to lower down the music if I think it’s too loud? Ask for a different chair if I don’t like the design?). I’m there to get some services in exchange for cash. Now, I also don’t post random reviews, but I don’t blame those that do.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying customers shouldn’t do all these things to be nice. Of course they should, in a kind of tautological way. It is nice to be nice. I am arguing that there is a big difference between nice, i.e.going above and beyond the expectations of the transaction expecting nothing but good karma in return, and being fair, i.e. observing the rules of the game. I also wonder if restaurateurs set the same standards to themselves before having opinions as consumers. NVQ in Light Vehicle Repair before opining on car mechanics? Take the name of a bus driver to let TfL know how good the service on the 43 was today? In-depth research on a footballer’s personal challenges and psychological state before commenting on their performance?

Here is the funny bit though. Uninformed, problematic, or just plain bad faith customers are nothing new. If anything, I would argue that UK restaurant goers are the best they have ever been: more informed, more engaged, and more willing to be nice to establishments than ever before. What has changed, of course, is how much damage a negative opinion can do when posted publicly. And it’s there where the usually extremely commercially astute hospitality professionals seem to fail to follow the money.

I still struggle to understand it, but somewhere in the mid-00s we collectively decided that illegal things can be legalised if they happen via “an app”. A pirate taxi was something for law enforcement, but an app with a multi-national fleet of pirate taxis is a hundred billion dollar enterprise. Making your apartment a black market, unregulated hotel is a demi-monde operation – unless the transaction happens via a web page. And publishers are obliged to separate between fact and opinion, and are libel liable on top. But if they self-identify as a “medium” through which “people” can voice their “views”, it all goes out of the window. Predictably, most of us hugely enjoyed that opportunity for unprecedented power and think, to varying degrees, that this protects us as consumers, levels the playing field, democratises a sector, or whatever the story is this week. (Brits are particularly vulnerable here, having spent the last 25 years being told they also wield such random review power over the provision of public services, a whole another farce of an affair.)

So, to answer the original question, what does a customer owe an establishment before a public review? Nothing. They have paid their bill, and they’re spending their free time exercising a power they are being constantly told by society is their right. They are not a professional reviewer, and it is not their obligation to be knowledgeable, accurate, or even factually correct. They’re being actively and constantly encouraged to publish their “truth”. What is actually happening behind the scenes of course is that both them and the restaurant are being instrumentalised by the one business that actually profits out of that: the publishing platform. Which makes more money the higher the engagement, and the nastier the interaction, the higher the engagement. And is entirely unregulated.

As this opinion comes in a site which is no stranger to reviews, you might be wondering what the obligations of a professional reviewer are instead. An excellent adjacent question and one for another day.

Photo by Jay Wennington on Unsplash