I went to see my favorite singer, Hal Ketchum, tonight. The concert was about an hour away, in a city that I haven’t been to in several years. (While it doesn’t relate to this review, Hal was great! He sings like an angel, and his voice fills the whole room. He is the only artist that I know who sounds better in person than on his recorded album. I highly recommend giving his songs a listen!)

Seeing that I am a foodie at heart, I wanted to go to dinner before the show. The friend who attended the concert with me, who was also mostly unfamiliar with the area, had obtained a few restaurant recommendations from a friend that does live in the area.

Wanting to ensure that we had a nice meal, we made the restaurant selection after visiting Yelp and reading the reviews. We ended up settling on the restaurant that had the highest average review. (We went to the “The Avairy” in Swansea, Massachusetts.) We ended up avoiding the restaurant that was closest to the concert venue based on its’ average and poor reviews on Yelp.

We experienced a good meal, with pleasant service and atmosphere. We ended up sharing a pizza, along with fish tacos that had been suggested by one of the reviewers. Both of us were happy with the experience; given the opportunity, I think that I can say that we would both go back and recommend it to other friends who were visiting the area.

Yelp is my go to app to find restaurants whenever I am in a location where I am unfamiliar with the restaurants. I have always found the reviews to be accurate, even though I know that Yelp has received some negative criticism from some small business owners who felt that some of the reviews were biased or rigged.

Yelp does have reviews for categories other than food, although I personally generally use it only for restaurant reviews. Other categories listed on the first page of the website include: nightlife, shopping, bars, beauty & spas, automotive, home services, health and medical, and local services.

For informational purposes I looked up the concert venue, the Narrows Center. I found that the location had been reviewed and averaged four and a half (out of five stars). I took the time to read through several of the reviews and also found all of them to be informative and accurate.

Yelp (iOS)
Yelp (Android)
Yelp Website