u/RipplesOfDivinity

How do you guys deal with people making bullshit claims in a review?

Got my very first one-star review. Everything about the review is sus. For one, I make every single bowl, and I can assure you, with 100% certainty she didn’t get shorted on anything ingredients/toppings wise. Same with the rice complaint. She’s 100% lying. Lastly; the “long hair in my food” comment really drove it home. I checked the time and day she ordered. I was the only one here, all day. I have nearly a buzz cut. If there was a hair in her food, it certainly wasn’t from me.

I decided to see if she is a serial complainer; and literally the very next review she’s complaining about THE EXACT SAME THING, “long hair in her food” included. It’s also at a place that is pretty similar to mine not far away.

Do you think this is a competitor? Would Google do anything if I appealed it? Like I don’t mind a one-star review if it was legitimate. This was 100% not that.

Also, FWIW, I learned today that DoorDash will just post any random picture they want to under your menu items. The picture this review referred to wasn’t even from my place. How that ended up on my DoorDash menu page? Your guess is as good as mine. Several other pics were also not from my restaurant. I had to manually remove them just now. So if you’re on DoorDash you may want to have a look on your dashboard and make sure DoorDash is actually posting real pictures of your actual products.

u/RipplesOfDivinity — 4 hours ago

▲ 12 r/restaurantowners

How do you market/educate people on something that is new for at least half the customer base in a given area?

I opened a fast casual poké bowl spot back in October. It’ll be my six month anniversary here at the end of April. Here’s the good:

•4.9 star Google rating with 60+ authentic reviews.

•5.0 star rating on Facebook with 100% “recommends”.

•4.8 star rating on DoorDash with 35+ reviews.

• Constant, unsolicited “oh my God how did I not know about this place before?!?” comments.

•Top-tier customer service. With almost all reviews mentioning how friendly; informative and nice the experience was.

•Several viral TikTok’s that gave small to moderate, temporary bumps in revenue.

•Steady, but *extremely* slow growth, month over month.

Here’s the bad:

•Barely enough sales to stay above water.

•People; without any asking, *rave* about us while they’re dining; and most on their way out the door; yet those people rarely; if ever, return.

•What little advertising I’ve done seems to do absolutely nothing to drive sales.

•Competitors like Chipotle, Bibibop, Honeygrow, QDoba etc are all regularly packed. So the people are out there… just not here.

•Still seeing about 50% of people through the door ask “what is this exactly?”

•When gas spiked, I noticed an immediate drop off of about 15%

•Starting running an aggressive TwoForTuesday campaign giving customers two premium bowls for $20, which would normally cost $16.49 each ($11 value) and almost no one takes advantage.

I’m trying not to spiral, but I’m kind of at a loss here. If our food was bad, I could understand. It’s not. If our service was bad, I could understand. It’s not. If our prices were out of line, I could understand. They’re not. If we sold something so niche that most people don’t eat it, I could understand. We don’t. We basically sell sushi bowls. And the sushi spots around here are some of the most busy restaurants in town.

Based on what I’ve described above, what are you sensing as some issues that could be causing the slow sales? As a locally owned, non-franchised, single location operator; I don’t have a national advertising campaign behind me. What little advertising I’ve done, has gone absolutely no where. Which makes me nervous to spend even more money I don’t have.

I know part of the problem is that I’m in a very blue collar area, and poké is still unknown to a lot of average everyday people.

But those same people regularly go to the sushi spot and spend as much or more, for far less food. How do I break through to them and make them understand that they can get double to triple the protein, and a very similar culinary experience, for LESS MONEY? On paper, I should be getting tons of those types of customers. Yet I don’t.

I’m sure this comes across as depressing, but I’m kind of at my wits end and was hoping for some help from you guys out there who have been doing this for a while. I appreciate any and all responses, and I’ll try and reply to comments as quickly as I can. Thank you!

reddit.com

u/RipplesOfDivinity — 2 days ago

▲ 4 r/sportscards

PSA grading might be the most irritating company I’ve ever done business with. rant

I got an ‘86 Fleer Jordan rookie as part of a trade last month. I immediately had a buyer for $4.5k contingent that I get it authenticated/graded by PSA. We agreed to a cash deal at a show this Sunday, April 19th.

I knew to get it done, I would have to bite the bullet and pay for the “Super Express” service level, which has an estimated turnaround time of 7 days. It costs $299 plus shipping costs. Is that insane? Yes. But for a $4,500 sale, I just built it into the sale price.

PSA took possession of my card on March 28th. By their own app, it said that completion date should be April 8th. By April 6th, it was still sitting in “order prep”. Which made me a little nervous that the timing was going to be delayed. April 8th comes and goes, and it’s still in “order prep”. Fuck.

I call. Speak to someone. She assures me that it shouldn’t still be sitting in “order prep” with the “super express” service level I paid for. She tells me the second we hang up, she’s going to call the right department and this will get fixed ASAP. Tells me two or three days tops, and it will be graded and on its way back to me. I explained this card is already sold and the person I’m selling to is meeting me at a show on the 19th. This call happened on Thursday the 9th.

She promised me, that I will “absolutely” have the card in hand by then. She was even going to make sure they upgrade shipping to expedite the process. Ok, cool. I feel better.

That call was on a Thursday morning. End of the day? No change. Friday? No change. All weekend? No change. Monday? No change? Finally on Tuesday the 14th, it changes to “Research and ID”. Then grading. Then assembly. All on the same day (Tuesday the 14th). I’m feeling better. Hopefullly this gets wrapped up that day, shipped on Wednesday, and I’ll have it in hand by Saturday at the latest for the sale.

Nope.

It’s now Friday night, the 17th. Card is *still* in assembly. I let the buyer know that PSA is dicking me around, and there’s not a damn thing I can do. He let me know that he’s gonna go in a different direction.

AWESOME. A pending $4,500 sale, now gone.

PSA has lied to me at every turn. The turnaround time is bullshit. The CSR I spoke to who acted like she was going to help, clearly was full of shit. I sent an email in frustration saying how pissed I was, and they cost me a huge sale. Their answer? “Once this card finishes, we’ll give you a coupon code for a future grading purchase.”

If it wouldn’t destroy a bunch of common folks cards, I’d hope that a meteor hits their HQ, and they all step on LEGO’s running out the door.

Worst. Company. EVER.

u/RipplesOfDivinity — 6 days ago

🔥 Hot ▲ 71 r/sportscards

Who is buying wax at these prices? This is a serious post. I’m honestly interested to know. Cause on paper it makes ZERO sense (or cents).

The Hobby™️ is currently doing something that defies almost all logic, across basically all genres of retail shopping for… well… basically anything.

I follow a guy who does DEEEEEEEEEEP DIVES into the average ROI of Fanatics/Topps Products; specifically hobby boxes. He basically watches breaks non-stop, uses dozens or in same cases hundreds of hobby boxes and their pulls as a baseline, and then posts what the average ROI looks like based on current comps and associated selling fees of the cards pulled.

On average, the ROI across all products from 2024 was 17.69%. From 2025 it was 16.33%. And so far from the limited 2026 stuff it’s at a paltry 14.21%.

Keep in mind there are a few monster pulls in there that are keeping the numbers higher than you’d think. Without those lottery ticket wins, you’re looking at less than 10% ROI on average for a hobby box.

I used to rip a decent amount from 2020-2023 or so. Then, between print runs and wax prices in some case going up 500% or more… I switched to mostly singles. I’ll still get the itch and buy a hobby here and there. And to be completely transparent, they’ve all been bad. Like bad, bad. The last straw was when I ripped a Topps Pristine for $650 and the *best* auto was worth $22 and the best numbered card was worth $10. The base combined maybe another $15-20. I can’t open a $700 box (with tax) and only get $50 in value. Just can’t do it.

So my question is… if everyone *knows* that they’re buying into a lottery, and the odds are 1 in a million to actually hit anything worth something…

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP DOING IT?!?

I’m not judging. At all. I’m just trying to look at it from a purely financial position. There are very few things on this earth that people will regularly throw big money at, without getting anything in return. At least with drugs you get a high, and a sex worker will get you off. Even an expensive restaurant you get an amazing meal.

With cards? You get shit on. Then you get depressed cause you just spent $750 on a pile of nothing.

Someone make it make sense.