Yelp! I hate somebody. Yelp! Almost everybody. Yelp! Won’t you please hate me!
—all due respect to John, Paul, George, and Ringo
Why I don’t like Yelp: Reasons number 2,343 and 2,344.
Yelpers walk into restaurants and introduce themselves as Yelpers, demand special attention, and become customers from hell. If they don’t get it, they murder the restaurant online. Usually you can flush out the grandiose writers by their pompous style. I’d hate to be a restaurateur and deal with these types.
Restaurateurs rating competitors on Yelp. Yesterday Maple and Motor’s Jack Perkins “exposed” Dace Street, the son of Gene Street who has been around the business (Snookies) for a few decades. On M&M’s Facebook page Perkins writes: “Check out what Dace Street is willing to do” and links to Street’s Yelp profile page. Street is out in the open: he boldly posts his picture on the page which also contains ten reviews. He gives 5 Stars to the Street-family-owned Liberty Burger and one to Maple and Motor.
It’s all bollocks. This is all starting to make Harvey Gough look like a softie. Hi Harvey, I’ll take a number 2 and melt the cheese!
UPDATE: I just received this note from Dace Street: “Some one is screwing with me. I took down the yelp profile that was associated with me. Good grief! I never took any pot-shots at M&M or anyone else.”
He’s right about the surly service at Maple and Motor.
Street also 1-starred Twisted Root. Since Twisted Root has 197 ratings and Maple & Motor 264, an isolated cheap shot by a competitor doesn’t meaningfully impact the reliability (such as it is) of the scores. Poor form.
Liberty Burger is no longer on my list of places to check out, I can abide surly, but don’t care for low rent.
Dear jack, let the trolling begin. Can’t wait to see your amazing responses!! You shouldn’t be in the restaurant business, you don’t get it. It is a service business, I know living off your doctor wife’s money has made life easy for you, but you are a world class jerk and it will catch up to you sooner or later. Either accept that your place is surly and you are a jerk, or change. People pointing it out shouldn’t be a shock to you or require your jerkitude back. Anyway – there are a hundred better burger places with friendly people who don’t spend ther time attacking others for pointing out the truth – they focus on taking care of their guests. Crazy concept I know.
Harvey Goff has nothing to do with Goff’s anymore…
Completely agree Dace Street was wrong in what he did!
What Dace Street did was unprofessional and shady, however, your general hatred of Yelp is uncalled for.
You base your opinion on some anecdotes of self-important yelpers and disregard the vast majority of yelp writers who just like to eat out and report about their good or bad experiences.
@Jacks a jerk
Hi Dace!
FWIW, Jack has been social and nice everytime i’ve been th M&M, and my dad was there last week and without prompting had a really nice conversation with Jack. And the staff too.
But bottom line is ripping your competitor on Yelp is a LOOOOOOOOW blow. not cool at all.
When it comes to Yelp reviews (total disclosure: I’m a Yelp Elite Reviewer) I take a similar approach to what a “traditional” food critic looks at (presentation, atmosphere, customer service, ect..) and act as an impartial party. Sure, there’s folks out there whom play up bad service off one visit,which is why I visit numerous times before posting a full review, but you also have to take into account that some people are also not built for working in the restaurant/customer facing business game.
In this case, I have to agree on both sides of the coin: You have two jerks here trying to sabotage each others business, and im laughing all the way..Let them both collapse and have someone who knows both great food and customer service take their place…
Jack has never been anything but nice and friendly to me. But then again I don’t bring screaming kids with me.
I stopped reviewing on Yelp and stop using Yelp because of this very thing. There were reviews obviously from the restaurant owner. This being said, I cannot imagine the street family doing this. Very unprofessional.
Jack has always been nice to me as well. Yes he does have some smart… comments, but that’s part of the fun. I respect somebody that can tell you what’s on his mind.
I stopped going to M&M a few months ago as I just got tired of the schtick. I now frequent OSK — burgers are almost as good, the rest of the menu has some outstanding items, and seating sucks just as bad! But most importantly, the staff is efficient and friendly, neither of which apply to M&M (unless by efficient you mean trying to remove my food before I am finished to try to turn the table).
I have been to Dace Street’s Liberty Burger several times and it was an ok experience. Nothing out of the ordinary but after reading about the low class shenanigans he pulled I will not being going there again. I imagine his dad Gene is probably giving him a can of whup ass and telling him to behave. Gene always has had class, too bad his son doesn’t.
Good grief! Some one hi-jacked my yelp profile. I would never take such cheap shots at our competitors.
Will try to get o the bottom of it. Sorry to TR and M&M, love your products.
Dace Street
Blasted! My Yelp profile was jacked. I would never take cheap shots like those at our esteemed competitors.
Good grief. Terribly sorry to M&M and TR. Love your products. Keep up the good work.
Dace Street
I went to M&M once and that was all it took. Everyone was rude, the signs telling people they cannot get tables without ordering first (which is understandable but get more than 6 tables so people can sit down), and I thought the burgers were very average. The whole place just gave me a very negative vibe. I thought it was just me and then the 2 guys I ate with walked out saying the same thing. Will never go back.
YELPERS DON’T COUNT
NO ONE READS YELP EXCEPT THE YELPERS READ THEIR OWN REVIEWS
AND THEY DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY TO SPEND TO GO OUT TO EAT
LOOK AT WHAT THEY ORDER, IF THEY DO
I OFFERED A FREE DINNER FOR ANY YELPER TO RESPOND
TO ONE OF MY RESTAURANT REVIEWS AND NO ONE RESPONDED
FEAR NOT THE YELPERS OR THOSE CRAVED FOOD BLOGGERS WITH
250 “LIKES” 1/2 OF WHICH ARE ALREADY HOSPITALITY FOLKS
RICHARD S POLLAK
PRESIDENT
PRESS CLUB OF NORTH TEXAS
FOOD,WINE AND TRAVEL WRITERS
@Richard Pollak- well played sir, you totally roused me into clicking your troll link.
Yelp is a wonderfully useful site, especially when traveling. However, as with any opinion site you need to discern good from bad and independant from self-interested reviews. Thankfully most reviews are legit, and this appears to be a minor (although not necessarily rare) exception.
For the record, I think M&M serves an awesome burger. Sr. Perkins is an interesting character though.
Guy’s I’ve kown Dace for years and I can tell you this is not his style. He just doesn’t think like that.
I’ve been to both and they are good burgers not great but good and the Idea that Dace would do anything like that is crazy. He grew up in this business and if this was something he was prone to do it would of come out years ago.
Everybody just take a breath…
@ Mike. I don’t have any kids, screaming or otherwise. Jack is just a jerk.
What I find funny is Jack is always dissing yelp and food blogs and has commented numerous times that he doesn’t pay any attention to them!! BS! He obviously checks his yelp profile often. I don’t know Dace and I think posting these comments is really amateurish but so is Jack’s bully behavior towards customers.
I’m thinking someone forgot to tell Richard Pollack that CAPS LOCK is tantamount to SCREAMING
Also, I wouldn’t mind taking you up on your offer, if you don’t mind coming on my show and letting me interview you, call it a fair trade..
I just got back to town and have caught wind of some sort of burger war of words going around, tied to my brother Dace. I want to clear the air as an owner of Liberty Burger, as his sister, and as a fan of M&M.
I’m still unclear on what has happened, but I am personally contacting yelp to try and figure this whole thing out. Dace hasn’t been in Maple and Motor in who knows how long (his loss, it is a damn good burger) , nor he has never reviewed or rated their business.
He says someone hacked his account, I don’t see how that is possible, so I am contacting yelp to sort this out.
The backlash has been shocking. I just wanted to send my 2cents in and let you know that we, Liberty Burger, are NON COMBATIVE in this burger war. We’re all in the business together– A rising tide lifts all boats. We are not here to rate, judge, and slam other hamburger businesses and we have been misrepresented by this entire situation.
We treat all of our guests as if they were our own family. All of the negative comments and personal attacks are completely against how we operate our personal and professional lives. Dace may handle yelp differently via Snookies, but via Liberty Burger, I handle the social media and I am removing myself and my business from this war of words. No more he said, she said. These are the facts.
Mariel Street and the Liberty Team
Jack?
The Yelp I need somebody song on this post was brilliant. Lost in the muck.
Nancy,
What I find most disturbing about this post is Mr. Pollak’s insistence on using CAPS. Didn’t you school him on CAPS just two days ago? This must end…
I was alerted to a couple of yelp 1 star reviews by a customer on Sunday. I thought one of them might be from a guy who called me a dick on Sunday for asking his wife/girlfriend/mother/sister to order before sitting. When I saw the one star review was from Dace, as well as the one star review of Twisted Root, it bothered me.
Gene was in my restaurant 4 or 5 times while they were getting ready to open. They do a few things the way we do them. They have their own way of doing others. I assumed we were all on the same team. I honestly don’t see any of the burger joints in Dallas as our competitors. The camaraderie among restauranteurs in Dallas is beyond what those outside the business would believe.
My disgust with the practice led me to post Dace’s profile on the Maple & Motor FB page along with my comment. It’s up to the individual to judge the claim that the account was hacked. I don’t know Dace. I don’t know how one would hack an account, nor what they would gain from it. I do know that I am easy to find if he, or any of you would like to speak with me personally.
I don’t take yelp seriously in general. I know that despite being an idiot who doesn’t know how to run a restaurant, mine does alright in spite of me. Gosh, I wish I knew how. We shouldn’t have to worry about it long though. I’m sure the anonymous chris danger is absolutely right. We’ll collapse any day now and I can go back to what I really like doing – counting my rich doctor wife’s money.
Are we all being leveled here?
No grown man (jack perkins) acts like such a teenage girl on the internet do they?
All I can say is that if this was posted on the Observer blog the comments would have been stupid and off the topic. Although I usually chime in in crap like this I think this was an interesting conversation on the bullshit of backstabbing. No way that person can say he was hacked.
Sandy, I would like your comment if I could.
Yelp account hacked?
Come on, man. What do you take us for.
I used to go to Liberty. I’m done.
Too many other excellent burger places (wimgfields, goodfriend, Adairs etc.)
Well Jack, you could always go back into education. Wait, maybe not.
Street thinks we are idiots. Someone “hacked” the account and bashed his business competitors and pumped him up? Who would have a motivation to do such a thing?
STOP LYING STREET. Its time to stop the bleeding, and come clean. Admit it, you f-d up. People forgive, forget. Until such an admission, Im staying away from Liberty.
I think that Street sounds like a moron, he sounds like an idiot. These comments…he needs to be shouted down and ridiculed at every point. I want this to go on for days so he can be dismissed. Street, and there are many like him, who seem to think that online anonymity is defined by lawlessness and a lack of ethics. So objective review sites are a place for him to advance his motives surreptitiously,
Im not with that garbage.
I’ve never been to either and don’t know either proprietor, so I can’t really comment on that. What I can comment on is Chris Danger’s need to alert everyone (on every food blog out there) that he’s “BTW, an Elite Yelper”. Good Lord man, get over yourself!
“Yelp Elite Reviewer”?
Is this something from Saturday Night Live? Or The Daily Show or Colbert?
Mad Magazine, maybe?
Let’s have a burger showdown! Tell me when an where and we’ll see what Liberty Burger and M&M have to offer! Best burger wins reign!
Street’s excuse is not credible, and the M&M guy seems more than a little thin-skinned. I give M&M an edge over Liberty and Twisted Root, but all three of those places are overrated in my view.
I just eat my burgers at OSK. Arguably, the best in Dallas. Served by a courteous, helpful, obliging, well trained staff.
That’s something none of the above can offer!
Did anyone notice it kind of looks like Street not only comments for himself but for his sister too? Similar posts about Yelp account hacking under both Mariel and Dace Street? And then one from Mariel herself disavowing any knowledge of the whole situation. Smells a little funny.
Street got caught red handed bad mouthing the competition and we all now can cross Liberty Burger off our lists of go to burger places. Mr. Street that was not cool at all. Grow up!