I recently came across an article that led me to a tweet from The Longs Arms, a well known foodie pub in Wiltshire:
It did force me to ponder somewhat. I've been fortunate to deal with entirely pleasant guests for the vast majority of my career; naturally there were some unreasonable fools scattered amongst them but those people were far from the norm.
But was I ever blackmailed in such a fashion? Never. With the rise of social media and online review sites such as Tripadvisor, the customer has never had more power, and some of them unquestionably abuse this, sadly.
The Longs Arms tweeted a little follow up later:
As you can imagine, there was a lot of support on Twitter and the consensus was overwhelmingly that they should not pay the ransom. This tweet probably sums up the general feeling:
I wholeheartedly agree, but I must admit it's easier said than done given the damage bad reviews can do to a restaurant.