Gotta make a few points here-
- to my knowledge, Griffin was not at all involved in America...the Diner
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who gives a crap about the decor?
Um, me, and a LOT of other people. I don't care if you're at Sepia, Avec, or the Weiners Circle, ambience matters and it is completely reasonable to take that into account when positively or negatively reviewing a spot no matter how casual.
- The assertion that somehow this is Griffin writing under a pseudonym trying to snipe other restaurants is absolutely preposterous. The guy is up front about his personal opinions to a fault. I cannot imagine him going out of the way to post something under a fake name. Frankly he doesn't waste a lot of energy on others opinions of him and I think if he felt as offended by a place as the reviewer did, he would just say so or not at all.
- If the guy writing is trying to take this seriously, isn't there some precedent in reviewers using pseudonyms to attempt to retain anonymity? I think the willingness to be frankly turned off by a place is refreshing, and no offense to Robin, but I really wish there was a bit more frank honesty in the Louisville restaurant review scene. In my reading Coomes is really the only writer before now I've seen be brutally honest about Louisville restaurant bull, whether its being frank about a manager or chef's tendency to bounce from place to place, or a restauranteurs attempt to serve a certain kind of food with a clear lack of understanding of what it is they are even trying to serve. I don't think Louisville foodies are craving restaurant take down's, but when a place truly blows it, we are craving honesty. I know I am.
- Griffin should not have called him a motherfucker. And I think the idea of the fry off is misguided if not well intentioned. It cuts against the assertion that this is not personal and made it seem that way. I don't believe Griffin intended that.
- Finally, as a business owner myself, I think Tony made a real mistake here in his response and handling of this. People are going to say overwhelmingly positive and negative views of your place regardless, he has only succeed in making sure more people have read this review. I don't even look at my Yelp reviews. We have a personal philosophy of what we do, and I value criticism whether positive or negative much more from people who say it to me personally, and we certainly get both. I've gotten freaking death threats for things we've done, (see if you can guess what) and pissed off other restauranteurs who were offended by our use of a certain allocation, but ultimately we ignored that and came out way better off for being ourselves. In the end, who gives a damn what some blog site or yahoo may review on the series of tubes that is the internet? His thin skinned response makes zero sense to me and essentially legitimized the entire blog/review/criticism in my opinion.