Barbaric Yelp

This Denver Chef Is the Yelp-Review Vigilante Nobody Asked For

Yelpers, beware.
Yelpers, beware. Photo: Onefold/Facebook

If your answer to Yelp’s ongoing problems involves increasing the number of verbal slapfights, then Denver has a hero-in-waiting for you. Mark Nery has been running a breakfast spot in town called Onefold for about a year, and that’s given him plenty of time to master the business-reply feature when Yelpers foolishly leave negative reviews. His most recent fusillade landed on Eater Denver’s radar after a customer over the weekend blasted the almond croissant for having a “sopping-wet layer” and the congee for its “oily orange halo.” Nery didn’t like the review or think it was accurate, so he fired off a nasty rebuttal that hurled a variety of interesting accusations, convincing the Yelper to post an update calling the meal “perhaps my most hilariously bad dining experience of all time.”

The Yelper in question, a user named Michael U., overwrote things a tad (“it was exclusively with congee in mind that the counter was approached”), one of the many details that didn’t escape Nery, but the real head-turner is how serious the attacks are in the reply:

Hey mike , sorry tldr; most of it. You can review our restaurant but I can’t review your writing? You do write with a prose that reminds me of a high school valedictorian that try’s way too hard to sound intelligent. However that’s my opinion just like your opinion of our congee. To be fair I would like to review your visit as well, I won’t make it as long and boring as yours. Creepy guy walks in, creeps out workers and customers. Asked for wifi password ducked behind computer, other customer walked up complained that you may be watching PORN confronted you and verified told you to turn off, you tell me how important of a food critic you are and write a bad review after you demolished all of the food I gave you. Verified with other restaurant friends of mine how creepy you were on your visits to their establishments and how you requested special treatment because you are a “food critic”. Btw you were not watching normal porn, however I am sure the fbi will catch you soon. You creepy pervert.

Michael doesn’t address (maybe is choosing not to dignify?) the porn accusation, but he does dispute almost everything else.

Just perusing Onefold’s Yelp page turns up loads of Nery takedowns, and the really brutal ones seem like they’d require the work of an oppo research team (in one case, security-camera footage was used to prove a whole pastry had been eaten). But for people without the time or inclination to wade through them, the highlights include calling one woman’s promise to never recommend Onefold “purely hypothetical” because first she’d “need friends” and “have to be likable enough for them to visit you in Denver.” Another hapless customer who hated the coffee was told to head to Starbucks and stop “trashing local roasters in all your worthless Yelp reviews.” Nery went as far as posting the infamous South Park episode where Yelpers are secretly fed boogers and semen in that response, but the attack that probably takes the cake came in reply to a lady who was just hoping for some decaf. She wrote, “I am a 74-year-old woman with health issues, which is why I had concerns about the coffee,” to which Nery responded, “I have grandparents that are much older than you and they would never resort to using their age as an excuse act like an asshole, asshole.”

[Eater Denver]

Maniac Chef Goes Nuts with Yelp Insults