STL Social Media Guy

Great post here from St. Louis blogger Reem Abeidoh that has sparked a terrific online discussion about a reader’s restaurant review and a pretty angry restaurateur. The blog item basically says that the restaurant owner threatened the author of the review on Yelp until it was removed.

I suppose that’s another strategy. Rather than go after the owner of the web site (in this case, Yelp, which I’ve blogged about before), the angry guy tracked down the review author.

A replacement version of the review said: “I am re-writing this b/c i had a post about this place, then the owner called going off on me b/c he was pissed at the review I gave him. Someone obviously saw this and told the owner. But remember this is a social site/forum.”

Turns out the reviewer eventually called the police because of the recordings the owner left on her answering machine. The police took her report but, according to Reem’s post, they advised her to change the review.

The restaurant is Beso Mexican Grill and Cantina and the Yelp page is here.

Here’s the really funny part: Reem wrote her item on May 20. As I look at the page right now, there are 46 reviews posted. I saw three reviews that were fairly favorable — four stars out of five — that were posted in early- to mid-May. After Reem wrote the blog item and people started hearing the story, dozens of readers posted stuff on the Yelp page — most of them with one star.

It’s worth reading the scores of comments on Reem’s blog and the ones posted on the Beso page. They’re a hoot.

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