Urbanspoon Stalker

Earlier this year, Richard and I went to a little restaurant in St. Augustine for lunch. It had been featured on a well known TV network, and was highly recommended.

By the way, in case you're wondering, I'm withholding the details of this story on purpose. Mainly because my blog is public, and the owner of that restaurant is just a little too wacky for me.

Back to my story. The restaurant reviews were excellent, and being that we aren't too far away, we were excited to try it out. So one fine afternoon we headed down there.

The restaurant is small, but wasn't too crowded. We sat at a window seat, and were promptly greeted by our server. She was very nice, and gave several recommendations.

The food came out pretty quickly, and we dug in. Richard's meal was so-so. As he would say, nothing to write home about. Haha! Mine on the other hand, was really tasty….until I bit down on something really hard. I thought I had broken a tooth it hurt so bad. I immediately reached in and pulled out a small, black, metallic looking object.

We alerted the owner, and explained what happened and showed her the offending object. She gave me a funny look, took the piece of whatever it was, and disappeared into the kitchen.

She was gone for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here starving, digging through my food, wondering if I should keep eating. She finally came back to the table, minus the object, and informed me that she didn't know what it was or where it came from, and that it most definitely did not come from her kitchen. Her attitude and demeanor were shocking. I sat there completely embarrassed as she insinuated that I was a liar. She showed no concern over my well-being, gave me a sarcastic "sorry", and walked back into the kitchen.

Our waitress came over and profusely apologized. She was more understanding than the owner, and seemed very embarrassed by the situation. We paid the bill, gathered up our belongings, and walked out.

When I got home, I wrote a review on Urbanspoon. I've been a member for several years, and like to make people aware of the good and the bad. I was frank, never mean, but just explained exactly what happened.

A couple weeks later, I noticed my review was gone. So I wrote it again. Again, it disappeared. Yet again, I posted my review, and a few days later it disappeared. Befuddled I contacted Urbanspoon and inquired as to why my review kept disappearing. I was told because of "legal issues" they had to remove my review. They told me I would be better off contacting the Health Department. Ooookay. So I wrote another review, this time I kept the details out of it, and said I wasn't allowed to share my entire experience, but that it was horrible, and we won't ever return. I also wrote a more detailed review on another site. There. Done. Now I can move on. Or so I thought.

I logged in to Urbanspoon today to write a review for a great little Chinese take-out place, and noticed that I had a follower. The name, and picture seemed oddly familiar so I clicked on the profile. It was a lady, she had no reviews, no followers of her own, and was only following me. Strange!

It suddenly dawned on me who she was. She was the owner of the restaurant!

Hello! Crazy much?

I also noticed that my two bad reviews on Urbanspoon had been marked down, and removed. I checked the other site where I had also left a review, and it was still there, but was marked negatively also.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but this freaked me out a little! Mainly because this woman is obviously watching my every move. My Urbanspoon account is linked to my Facebook account. Thank heavens I had made it private, and you can only see my first name.

This, I reminded myself, is why I never use my full name on anything. Think about it, how easy would it be to find someone that way.

So here's a friendly little thought to ponder. Do you write reviews? If so, do you include personal information? Information that could be used to locate you, and figure out where you go to school, or to church? Scary thought!

I always used to think, well if you're not doing anything wrong who cares if everyone knows everything about you. You know, that whole "people who are private have something to hide" mentality. Wrong! I went for lunch at a little restaurant, wrote a review about my experience, and now I'm being followed and observed by the owner!

I did contact Urbanspoon about all this. Frankly, I haven't found them very professional in my few interactions with them. They refuse to remove or block her from seeing my profile and reviews. They claim it is public information. Yet, the only two negative reviews out of many, many reviews I have written have both been removed since she's been following me. Kind of makes me want to write a bad review for another restaurant just to see what happens!!

If you think Urbanspoon is an unbiased site, where you can read the good and the bad, think again.

As far as my experience at the restaurant...In hindsight, I should have immediately gone to the health department. I also should never have given her that object, whatever it was. Now it's her word against mine. If I had kept it, I could have given it to the Health Dept. and they could have proceeded as they saw fit, and possibly identified what it was.

Good lesson if you ever find yourself in that kind of situation!!