Barbecue Restaurants, To Review or Not To Review, Part II

A few weeks back I asked the question, ” Is it OK to give the name of the barbecue restaurant when giving a poor review?”

If you didn’t get a chance to read it you can read about it right here

Well I posed the same question to various barbecue forums around the net and and the topic really took off.

If you would like to read these posts you can get them here
and right here

I think it’s safe to say most people felt it was perfectly fine to use the name of the restaurant when a bad review is in order.

Others felt it was unfair to judge a barbecue joint just from one visit and without bringing my displeasure to the owners attention.

There were a few people who had very strong opinions stating only professional restaurant critics should review restaurants, ( this is true, I am not a professional critic but I also believe you do not have to wait around for an expert fairy to fly in your window and tap you on the head declaring you an expert on something).

There were others who felt taste was a matter of opinion. In other words, every one’s taste buds are different and therefore what is good to one person, may taste bad to another.

And still others who felt I was a “despicable blogger” with self serving mumbo-jumbo looking to ruin the world with my horrid opinions of the world.

Through all of this I did have some pretty good take aways– mainly I will continue to review barbecue restaurants because there seems to be a need for it.

With this said, I will only review barbecue restaurants under the following conditions:

1. I will eat at the restaurant more than once.

2. If I have a particularly bad meal I will bring it to the attention of the restaurant owner or manager to see if they remedy the problem.

3. I will contact the restaurant via mail or e-mail when I post a poor or good review so they may respond if they wish.

All in all I think I’ve made a decision that’s fair to my readers and fair to barbecue restaurants.

Now go smoke something, Bill Parlaman

P.S. Be on the look out for an eye opening interview I did with Best Selling Author and International Barbecue Champion, Rockin Ronnie Shewchuck.

In this interview Rockin Ronnie reveals some of his secrets for creating mouth watering barbecue and what it really takes to get your barbecue cook book published!

You can learn more about Rocking Ronnie right here!

If you’ve enjoyed this, please pass it along to a few of your friends, and if you have any comments please leave them right here on my blog.