Ask Adam: Is There Ever a Reason to Give a Bad Yelp Review?

If you are a decent human being, there is rarely a reason to give a bad Yelp review. As I have advised previously in this column, if you are unhappy with your service, food, drinks, or overall experience, the best thing you can do is reach out to the ownership or management to share your concerns. Having a conversation about what you experienced not only allows the venue to address the issue, it also avoids them suffering a potential loss of revenue from a bad review that they aren’t then able to resolve.

The only time I condone leaving a negative review is if you tried to address the problem correctly first, but your concerns have fallen on deaf ears. If management blows you off, or worse, tells you that in fact you are the one at fault, and refuses to try and make the experience right for you, then by all means, share your experience with others. But I find this is rarely the case, and only happens with the worst operators. So please, give people the chance to make it right first, before leaving a negative review that brands them as a poor establishment. After all, the internet is forever.