However, looking more broadly, chain restaurants as a whole seem to have declined in market share as Yelp has grown in prominence. “This suggests,” Luca writes, “that online consumer reviews substitute for more traditional forms of reputation.” In 2007, about 50 percent of all restaurant spending, some $125 billion per year, went to chain restaurants. Chains have always benefited from uniformity: No matter where you go, you always know what you’ll get at an Applebee’s or a McDonald’s. Independent restaurants, by contrast, are more of a gamble. But as online review sites like Yelp expand, that’s no longer the case.
I love this development.
As much as I despise chains I get the appeal to people who find themselves out of their familiar environment. They're big, obvious & familiar and that's a major selling point for some folks.
For our mini-vacation to Gilroy Gardens I hit up Yelp for suggestions and it delivered a sheaf of highly rated independent establishments to check out. Although we ended up at Chevy's one night (everyone was tired and it was right across the street from our hotel), for the rest of our trip we ate like locals. Being able to reliably find good independent joints far from home is a terrific quality of life improvement.
Anything undermining the corporate hegemony dominating most facets of American life gets my approval. Viva Yelp!
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