Checklist for your Restaurant Review

1)    Do NOT write your review in chronological order. That is, don’t begin with a bland description of the outside of the restaurant or of the hostess taking you to your table. Begin with your most striking idea from the whole review somewhere in the first three sentences. Almost certainly that won’t be the first thing that happens during your visit. That doesn’t mean you can’t begin with a vivid description of the interior – which you will have taken the time to study - if those details support your main point, if it goes somewhere.  Consider this student lead from a couple years ago:

At first impression, you might think you’d walked into a glorified soup kitchen, which isn’t half wrong. Tommy’s Joynt doesn’t have any menus or servers, and there’s a sign above a barrel of pickles that reads, “Enjoy the pickles. But please only take what you can eat – when you buy something.” The walls are covered with old beer signs, paintings of horses, and any other kind of memorabilia that has been stuck up since 1947. Yet all these distractions fade when hungry customers lay their eyes on Tommy’s meat.

Tommy’s is a meat market. People line up, look at the wall of meat options, and watch as a guy with a giant knife cuts healthy portions of all types of meat onto a plate. There’s bratwurst, knackwurst, lasagna, spaghetti with meatballs, buffalo stew, and of course the bbq turkey sloppy joe. You feel like you’re  in a 1950’s school cafeteria. All meals are served on a tray with options of rice, mashed potatoes, beans, and any other side that can be scooped out of a metal tub.

2) At the end, list the basic consumer info: address, telephone number, hours of operation, reservation policy, price range, credit card policy, dress code (if any), noise level and so on.

3) Give me some sort of grading scale and use it to evaluate the restaurant. Here’s an example.

Three margaritas out of four

El Toreador:

50 West Portal Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94127

415.566.8104

Credit Cards: All major

Entrees: $8.75-14.95

Drinks: (Beers and margaritas are about $4.00- a little pricey)

Atmosphere: If you go early (around 4:30 pm for dinner), you can hear your conversation.  After 5:30 pm, forget about it.

Service: Friendly, but a little prompt.  Dishes came faster than I could eat them.

4) Tell me how much your meal costs item by item.