Reviews From Set Menu Diners at a Restaurant Festival

A full room and a run of new reviews

The city's winter restaurant festival is into its first week. Every table is booked for two seatings a night, and most of the diners have never eaten in the restaurant before.

They order from a fixed three-course menu at a set price, chosen with the festival in mind. By the weekend, new reviews start to appear.

Some are warm. Others say the courses came slowly, or too fast, that the portions were small, or that the dessert felt like an afterthought.

Why festival reviews read differently

A festival diner is often comparing several restaurants at the same price over a few weeks. Each review judges one meal on one crowded night, from a menu built to meet that price.

Later readers rarely know that. A review complaining of small portions and a slow kitchen sits beside reviews of ordinary nights, with the same stars, long after the festival ends.

The festival is still worth joining for many restaurants. It brings in people who would not otherwise come, and each one leaves with an opinion that may be read for years.

What festival diners notice most

• Pacing, whether courses arrive with long gaps or the meal feels hurried to turn the table.
• Portions against the price, judged by what the menu description led them to expect.
• The weakest course, often a dessert added only to make up three courses.
• How they were treated, and whether staff made festival diners feel second best.
• Whether the kitchen's style came through, or the menu could belong anywhere.

Most of these are settled before the festival starts, in the choice of dishes and in the staffing plan.

Dishes that represent the kitchen

Build the festival menu from dishes the kitchen cooks every day and can plate quickly for a full room. A dish invented for the festival is being tested on paying guests.

Include at least one dish the restaurant is known for, even if its margin at the festival price is thinner. That is the dish a first-time diner will describe to friends.

Describe each course accurately, including the size of anything that might surprise. Offer a vegetarian choice for each course, so a mixed table does not split over the menu.

Staffing for full seatings

A full room of first-time diners needs more hands than a full room of regulars. Add a server or a runner for festival nights, and brief the whole floor before each service.

Leave a realistic gap between seatings. If a table has to be cleared by a set time, say so when the booking is made, not when dessert arrives.

Treat festival diners as guests, not as a discount crowd. The welcome at the door and the moment the bill arrives shape how the evening is remembered.

A worked example

A kombucha brewer runs a small taproom beside its brewing room, with a kitchen serving plates made to go with its brews. This year it joined the festival for the first time.

Its festival menu paired each of three courses with a different kombucha. The dessert was a new recipe, and a second seating had been squeezed in on weekend nights.

The first reviews praised the main course and the pairings but called the dessert dull and the late seating rushed. One diner wrote that kombucha was simply not to her taste.

The brewer replaced the dessert with a cake the kitchen bakes every week, dropped the late weekend seating, and offered tea or sparkling water instead of a pairing to anyone who asked.

Each review got a reply from the owner, by name. The replies thanked the diner, said what had changed, and mentioned the regular menu's shared plates and tasting flights.

Where festival reviews appear

Festival diners review wherever they usually do. Yelp, Google+ Local and the restaurant's Facebook Page are the common places.

Claim the restaurant's listing on each site, so replies come from the business and show as the owner's. On Google, that is done through Google Places for Business.

Check each one daily during the festival. A reply posted the day after a review sits beside it for every later reader; one posted a month later reads as an afterthought.

Replying to festival reviews

Reply to every festival review, the warm ones as well as the critical. Thank the diner for coming during the festival, which also tells later readers what kind of meal it was.

Answer the specific point. If the gap between courses was long, say what happened and what has changed. If a portion surprised them, explain what the menu was built to do.

Then invite them back on an ordinary night, naming one thing the festival menu did not include: the dish the kitchen is known for, the weekend brunch, the room when it is quieter.

What to leave out of a reply

Do not argue, and do not blame the festival, the price or the crowd. Later readers judge the reply as much as the review.

Never offer anything in return for a new or changed review. Review sites forbid it, and a public offer of a free meal reads as payment for silence.

Leave out details of the diner's booking or party. A reply is public, and the diner did not agree to have their evening described by the restaurant.

The counter-case

A restaurant that already serves a set menu every night, at a similar price, has less to plan. The festival meal is the ordinary meal, and its reviews describe the place fairly.

Some restaurants decide the festival is not for them, a sound choice for a kitchen that cannot add covers without the food suffering.

For any restaurant that does take part, every festival diner is a first impression that stays online. Choosing the menu with care and replying well give that impression a fair hearing.

Through the festival and after it

1. Read new reviews every day while the festival runs.
2. Reply within a few days, signed with a name.
3. Answer the point each diner actually raised.
4. Name one thing an ordinary night offers.
5. Brief the floor staff before every festival service.
6. Note which dishes drew complaints, and why.
7. Plan next year's menu around everyday dishes.

Step four turns a reply into an invitation. A diner who met the restaurant on its busiest night learns, in one line, what a quieter evening there is like.

The Facebook Page carrying those replies needs protecting too: messages saying your Facebook page will be shut down explains how.

Frequently asked questions

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