Did you ever wonder why most daily newspapers don’t publish “Restaurant Reviews” these days?
There’s a simple economic explination for this–it’s bad for the newspaper advertising business to publish bad reviews about advertisers.
The option of printing only “positive” reviews is, well, an option, and some newspapers try to pass such always-glowing “reviews” off as “critiques.”
But most dailes with any integrity know this is a sham–and often just as risky. So truly “critical reviews” of anything are fairly uncommon today. Chickens.
At McPundit we’re not Chicken. We think there is service rendered to readers by publishing honest reviews of local restaurants. “Good” reviews as well as “bad” reviews. As the reported “Dining-Out Capital of the USA,” BoNo is chock full of restaurants–some new, some old, some good, –some, well, not so good. It’s difficult to tell where to get the best meal for the dollar. And in these hard times, risking good money on a bad dinner out isn’t funny.
McLean County residents swap opinions all the time about eateries that are Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down–we’ll just be sharing our opinion on the Web.
So every now and again, McPundit will be sending its Diner Spy out into BoNo and McLean County to try the fare at a local restaurant and then share impressions with our readers. If an experience is excellent, we’re going to say so–and why. But we’re not going to pull any punches if the experience is not good. We’re going to say so–and why.
If our spy says a restaurant experience was poor, we are going to print the review “as is.” But we will go back to the restaurant at a later date and given them a fair “second chance.”
The identity of our Diner Spy will be a very closely-guarded secret. He or she alone picks the restaurant “target”–and pays for the meal themselves. He or she cannot accept “invitations” to review establishments. And—we do not do any reviews of restaurants that already advertise with us, just to be sure there is no conflict of interest. If a venue wants to run an ad after Diner Spy has investigated them, well, that’s okay.
We’ll also be taking Comments on what Diner Spy has to say so that you’ll have the opportunity to weigh in with your impressions.
So look for our first Diner Spy Report, coming soon, here under the ON THE TOWN section of McPundit!