Comments for Oakland Chop Bar » Oakland Chop Bar | Jack London Square Eatery

Comment on New Oatmeal, Fists of Flour, Malvasia by Wedding Event Planne

Wedding Event Planne — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:14:54 +0000

Betsy Fields crafts her oatmeals, granolas, and mueslis from grains sourced directly from local farmers. Come give it a try.

Comment on The Trouble With Yelp by John

John — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:48:43 +0000

I work in IT and have seen business clients deal with Yelp hostility. It’s horrible, especially for doctors and dentists. One of my doctor clients sued a Yelp poster and won a $250k judgement against her. This client is now suing Yelp. Businesses can pay $300/month (or so) to Yelp for a euphemistic “merchant” membership, which Yelp publicly denies includes removal of many bad reviews. However, my doctor client paid the $300/month and the bad reviews disappeared, just as the Yelp sales rep suggested on the phone (but not in writing)! When Yelp learned that my client was suing a Yelp poster (and possibly Yelp), Yelp canceled the merchant membership and put all the negative reviews back!

What this means is (1) Yelp allegedly extorts businesses (how else is Yelp going to coax small businesses to pay $300/month and (2) Yelp’s ratings are extremely untrustworthy. How do you know if a business is truly has a 4 or 5 star Yelp rating if that business pays Yelp and Yelp removes the negative ratings (an action they adamantly deny but I’ve witnessed)? And how do you know if a 2 or 3 star business doesn’t actually have a higher rating than its competitors who pay off Yelp every month?

And what about insane posters who lie and post negative reviews under different names? This was found to be the case for the poster who lost the judgement against one of my clients. Not only did she post negative reviews under different names, she also even created a new merchant profile for my doctor client (worded differently) just to post negative reviews there. This client lost tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of dollars in business because Yelp did not respond for several months to my client’s complaints of gross fraud. Patients searching for the doctor would see the bad reviews in Google results.

Yelp is a devil’s racket that harms businesses and customers.

Comment on The Trouble With Yelp by JLDOakland

JLDOakland — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:29:26 +0000

Lev, until I watched the video clip they posted I felt maybe you were over reacting, people have bad days and the result is outlier reviews like that one from TA. But when I watched it I changed me mind – I’m guessing TA thought it was somehow”funny” or clever to post that – they post YouTube clips on some of their other reviews but it shows they had not the slightest care of being extremely offensive and threatening themselves. If they want to prove how great a customer they are that you turned away this is not it. I would not be surprised that posting something like that is a violation of Yelp TOS for posters and find it sad that Yelp (how has had well publicized issues with basically blackmailing businesses over bad reviews) does not have a button to flag a review as offensive, or otherwise inappropriate – I would willing click on one in this case.

Looking at the rest of TA’s reviews it seems like when they give a bad one they go overboard with the ad-hominen attacks, epithets and such, not really helpful at all, just pure venting. I think most people who use Yelp seriously realize there are always outliers and this one, among so many positive reviews.

TA, if you should happen to read this – I was at CB on the night in question and also found several open tables. We were told politely that the table we had originally indicated an interest was bigger than our party of three. So we took a smaller table but as more people came to join us we were repeatedly given the choice of moving to a bigger table. I can assure you that none of us were hipsters and had no visible tattoos. Given the amount of praise you originally showered on Chop Bar in your first review I think you would owe it to go back another time, talk to the manager and express your disappointment before unloading a truck load of hate and vitriol.

Comment on Sticky Wonton Antics by Joanna

Joanna — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:05:35 +0000

OMG, I love, love, love the new dessert (and the sundae should be a regular, too!) and the pork belly wontons. I have to admit, I haven’t been a huge fan of the dessert menu until last night and we had both the sticky date with boozy raisins and the sundae. Love it! Thanks for the update!

Comment on Lots of Events, Vacation Bore Alert by Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 01:43:03 +0000

When is the goat roast!!! Such a great idea!

Comment on Lots of Events, Vacation Bore Alert by Lev

Lev — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:43:28 +0000

Yup. Look for some photos of a sidreria in the mountains outside Donostia tomorrow.

Comment on Lots of Events, Vacation Bore Alert by Analisa

Analisa — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:41:06 +0000

I would love to hear more about your trip, do you have photos to share?

Comment on Pig Roast!!! by Peter

Peter — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:45:25 +0000

We had a great time and a great meal. Thanks to everyone who put it together. See you next month!

Comment on Pig Roast!!! by Peter

Peter — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 18:44:12 +0000

Any price break for the kids? We’re coming no matter what.

Comment on Keeping It Local- One Year In by Chop Bar – oaklandly

Chop Bar – oaklandly — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:41:50 +0000

[...] list is too long to include, but you can check out a partial list of all the local vendors on their blog. Just a few highlights… The cheese in my frittata was Laura Chenel's Chevre located in Sonoma, [...]