Ranking...A System...Sort Of

So, as I was discussing my blog with Jason Bergstrom this morning I realized I wanted to do a post about how I will rank and score restaurants. This blog is not going to be an exclusive restaurant review site, but I would like to have some means of telling the handful of people who read this blog what I like and what I don't like and why.

Oh, and I just thought of another thing that might be fun. If you want you can post suggestions of restaurants for me to visit and then I'll write up the review. I love visiting new places and I like having recommendations from people I know because then I am less likely to be disappointed.

This is what I'm thinking. I think we'll go with the classic star rating system. And we'll max out at five stars. Categorizing the range of prices will be a bit trickier, but I am sure I can devise some system that makes sense eventually.

The categories will be as follows: food, service, ambiance/atmosphere, value and most importantly to me, consistency. I think consistency is super important because you might go to a restaurant once and have a wonderful experience, but the next time you go everything is awful. To make the grade a restaurant has to score consistently high, so I have no fear of ever sending someone there because I know that no matter when they happen go they will be in for a treat.

Consistency can work for a restaurant and also work against it. If a place has been consistently good and I go once and have a bad experience I will give them several more chances to prove to me that the one bad experience was an anomaly. If indeed the bad experience proves to be the exception then the restaurant will be restored to good standing. But in the rare case that a restaurant goes from being consistently good to consistently bad then unfortunately I will no longer visit and will definitely not recommend said restaurant to anyone.

I have a bit of a reputation as being the person to go to when one might be looking for restaurant suggestions. I enjoy this. I like talking to people about restaurants and food and I love to live vicariously through others dining out experiences. I also value my reputation. I don't want to send anyone, even someone I don't really know, to a bad restaurant. It hurts my reputation and I don't enjoy that. That's part of the reason why consistency is so very important. My reputation depends on it.

I will review new restaurants, ones I've never been to that is, but they will be missing the consistency rating. I might still recommend them, but I wouldn't necessarily stake my reputation on any of them!

So stay tuned to read the first of my reviews. Not sure which restaurant it will be covering but it promises to be an interesting experience.