Captain Pepper Jacks

And why such animosity toward a negative review?

Again, I don't think anyone would consider this a review. A review should at least be fair and balanced. This was a total negative, rant, throwing under the bus. There was no mention of food at all except the last sentence. What do they serve, what is the vibe of the place, what is the price range, what was the taste of each dish, what kind of food is it? There was no info, just a negative, condescending rant. To be at all fair it might have been mentioned that the place just opened. I'm not a journalist, but if I was ever to informally "review" a restaurant I don't think I could be so one sided and then post it for the world to see without regard to the consequences to the restaurant. And also to be fair, if you had a bad experience why not give another visit to see if was better on the 2nd trip?

Psst ... Brian ... feel free to disagree with the new guy, but let's keep it civil. One easy test: If you feel like typing in a comment with a tone that might earn you a punch in the mouth in face-to-face conversation, keep it to yourself, take a deep breath, and type something nicer. (Not just aiming at you but reminding the choir that "keep it civil" is one of our key rules around here.)

Robin, I don't see anything uncivil from the posts. I think these are very legitimate concerns and logical conclusions from the info that was posted.

Robin, did you you read the linked review? What's your opinion of it? Would have you posted something like this?

The review was fair and balanced. I don't work for a rival restaurant. No one paid for my meal. I went to Captain PepperJack's, paid for a meal, and related my experience.

As such, the food was unremarkable, neither great nor awful, so I didn't mention it much. The vibe was nonexistent, save for the group that left without ordering.

If the service had been competent, I wouldn't have bothered to review Captain PepperJack's at all. The story, what made the experience worth relating, was the incompetent service. Nothing else about the meal was worth relating.

[Robin Garr]

Robin, I don't see anything uncivil from the posts. I think these are very legitimate concerns and logical conclusions from the info that was posted.

Brian, with respect, I was bothered by the way you personalized your attack with terms like "I seriously question your cred" and "I guess they have no standards for what type of material they put online."

I don't want to get overly worked up about this. It just seemed like an overly strong attack on a newbie and thus a good point to remind everyone that being civil is important to the overall tone and philosophy of this forum.

I thought Zach's review was okay. I really don't want to get into the business of evaluating reviews. We encourage everyone here to post their opinions about places to eat and drink, whether positive or negative. I'm not going to establish specific literary criteria.

I would have liked it if Zach had copied his review here rather than taking readers off-forum to see it, but there's no forum rule about that, and I personally didn't want to welcome a new guy by nitpicking his first post. Time for that later.

Well Zach, I'm sorry you didn't like your experience. Did you happen to mention that they've been open less than a week? No. Did you inquire as to why they didn't have certain menu items? Obviously not, you would have found that they've had problems with suppliers and some items still haven't arrived so that they can be put on the menu and others aren't being delivered in a timely fashion. New restaurants go through growing pains as far as knowing what to restock and when, but you also failed to mention that. Didn't say how the wait staff is very friendly either did ya? Well, they are.

I'm not discounting your account of your meal there but your "review" seemed like a rant. I've eaten there three times and while certain aspects, such as the server's knowledge of the menu, could have been better, overall I really like the place. I was fortunate enough to meet the chef during their soft opening and he's very passionate about food, and they take pride in what they do there. I'm sure had you spoken to the manager or chef they would've apologized and made up for you bad experience.

Bottom line, your first attempt at posting on here seemed very much like you were bashing the place, for really no good reason, and you rant of a review is really stretching the definition of objective journalism. It just seems like once they made a small mistake like saying "Miller's" instead of Miller, that you had your mind made that it was a bad place. If you want to be truly objective go back in a month after the iron some of the kinks out.

P.S. order the chicken wings and baba ghanoush for apps, red beans and rice as a side