My advice to restaurant owners: don’t apologize for a bad Yelp review | Gene Marks

If you've done something wrong, admit your mistake and fix what you can. Otherwise, stand your ground

Remember Anton Ego - the aptly-named villainous restaurant critic in the animated film Ratatouille? His scathing review of Chef Gusteau's restaurant debatably contributed to the chef's death. It was only the delicious food prepared by Remy - he was the rat - which saved the day for the celebrated Parisian eatery. Ego represented a cohort of food critics that dominated the restaurant industry for centuries. But where are those food critics today? Sure, there are still a few around. But most of them have been crowdsourced by review sites like Yelp.

Yelp has become the place where people get their food reviews. And not just food. It's retailers and services too. The site reportedly has logged 184m reviews worldwide and 178m unique visitor each month. Some 45% of people will check a Yelp review before visiting a business. That is great power.