One-Star Reviews Get Weird

Matt Estrin owns a distillery and two restaurants in Northern Colorado, including a gourmet waffle restaurant where chicken and waffles are one of the signature dishes.

Naturally, he has received his share of negative reviews.

Some are legitimate complaints that give him something to improve. Others are considerably harder to take seriously.

One customer complained about dry, cold, overpriced waffles and declared that they would rather eat a frozen Eggo waffle. Another person left a one-star review criticizing Matt’s responses to other reviews—despite never having visited the restaurant.

That second kind of review raises a strange question: What exactly are customers reviewing?

When Customers Review Everything Except the Food

Matt describes a couple who sat in his restaurant and essentially reviewed the entire experience in real time.

They didn’t like the door. They didn’t like ordering at the counter. They didn’t like the tip prompt on the point-of-sale system. They didn’t like the tables near the restroom, the chairs, the wait for their food, or the self-serve coffee.

Matt found himself wondering how someone could spend so much of a meal focusing on everything around them instead of simply enjoying being there.

The conversation leads Morgan and Matt into a broader discussion about modern customer culture—and how the sheer abundance of choices may have changed the way people experience businesses.

When there are endless restaurants, products, services, and alternatives, it’s easier to treat each individual experience as something to dissect rather than something to enjoy.

The Problem With Complaining From Behind a Keyboard

There’s another issue with online reviews: they can replace an actual conversation.

Morgan points out that the ability to have difficult conversations seems to be disappearing. Instead of telling a restaurant owner or manager directly that something went wrong, customers can immediately go online and broadcast their frustration.

But from a business owner’s perspective, direct feedback can be incredibly valuable.

Matt doesn’t object to customers telling him that something went wrong. In fact, he wants that feedback. If the food genuinely wasn’t good or the business made a mistake, that’s something he can address.

The difference is between useful criticism and criticism that exists primarily to express anger.

Turning Feedback Into a Game

That distinction inspires Morgan to start brainstorming.

What if Matt created a recurring contest for the most useful feedback?

Customers could submit suggestions, and each month one person could win a free meal. The cost to the restaurant would be minimal, but customers would have an incentive to channel all those opinions into something constructive.

Morgan takes the idea further: publicize the winner, share the suggestion on social media, show how the restaurant implemented it, and even have fun with the suggestions that aren’t useful.

Instead of fighting the review culture, Matt could redirect it.

The people who love giving their opinions would have a reason to give them directly to the business—and the restaurant would potentially get a continuous stream of ideas from its customers.

Bad Reviews Can Become Content

The idea also turns negative feedback into something the business can use creatively.

Matt already responds to ridiculous reviews with sarcasm and humor. He says that most people who see his responses find them funny, while some reviewers become even more upset.

That can create its own form of engagement.

A particularly strange review can become a conversation about the restaurant rather than simply a negative mark against it. And sometimes, the response becomes almost as entertaining as the original complaint.

The key is knowing when a review is actually worth taking seriously.

If the restaurant made a mistake, Matt says he will own it, apologize, and try to make it right. But when someone leaves a wildly unreasonable complaint, humor can change the entire dynamic.

You Can’t Win Everyone Over

One of the more important points in the conversation is that not every customer can be won over.

There will always be some percentage of people who are going to be unhappy regardless of what a business does.

That’s particularly relevant to client work, too. As Morgan points out, sometimes the lesson isn’t how to make everyone happy. It’s recognizing that some people are simply going to be difficult—and accepting that reality instead of allowing every negative interaction to consume you.

The goal isn’t to eliminate every bad review.

It’s to learn from the legitimate ones, respond intelligently to the unreasonable ones, and avoid letting either type dictate the entire story.

Humor Changes the Relationship With the Problem

For Matt, humor has become part of the way he handles criticism.

A bad review can feel like an attack if you treat it only as an attack. But if you can find something funny about the situation, you can change your relationship with it.

Morgan takes that idea beyond restaurants.

Bad experiences happen everywhere. Sometimes they show you what needs to change. Sometimes they teach you something about the people around you. Sometimes they reveal that you need to improve. And sometimes they simply reveal that a particular person isn’t someone you need in your life.

The useful response isn’t necessarily to pretend the bad experience didn’t happen.

It’s to figure out what you can do with it.

From Bad Review to Marketing Experiment

By the end of the conversation, what began as a discussion about ridiculous one-star reviews has turned into an actual marketing experiment.

Morgan challenges Matt to try the customer-feedback contest, promote it in the restaurant, and see what happens.

The idea is bigger than getting fewer negative reviews. It’s about creating a feedback loop where customers are encouraged to tell the business what they think—and where the business can turn that information into improvements, content, and community engagement.

And perhaps that’s the strangest lesson of all:

Sometimes the thing that looks like a problem is actually an invitation to get creative.