Reviews: Denver diners among nation’s nicest
Mile High City scores well in analysis of patrons in major metro areas
Denver restaurant patrons are a laidback bunch, at least when compared with their counterparts in Texas, California and elsewhere.
Based on restaurants reviews left on Facebook, Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor, a recent analysis of diners in major cities found that people in Denver to be the 24thtoughest crowd out of 25. Flipping the scale over, that means local eaters are the secondeasiest bunch to please, trailing only the folks in Charleston, S.C.
The analysis comes from an unusual source: Home Run Inn, a Chicagoarea pizza chain that also distributes frozen piz zas in more than 35 states. Author Andrew Jones has produced blog posts for the company’s homeruninnpizza.com, with titles such as “How To Master the Grilled Pizza” and “The Most Googled Summer Obsessions by State.”
For the restaurant ratings and review analysis, Jones and Co. say they looked at 4,000 data points collected from the four websites. All the reviews used to compile the analysis come from establishments that appear on Eater.com‘s “38 essential” restaurant lists for 25 major metro areas, weeding out bad apples that might drag down average ratings. Twentytwo of the cities included in the list are in the U.S. London, Paris and Montreal are also part of the review.
The city with the most critical diners was Austin, Texas, followed by fellow Lone Star State burg Houston. Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., rounded out the top five.
“And which cities in the world have the bestrated restaurants?” Jones wrote. “According to our data, the bestrated restaurants were all in Charleston, Denver, Boston, San Diego and Seattle.”
Caroline Glover isn’t surprised to hear Denver restaurant customers are among the kindest reviewers. The chef and owner of Annette restaurant, a 40seat eatery located inside Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace,
has 13 years of industry experience and worked in New York City (ranked No. 6 for harshest reviews) before making her way to Colorado.
Annette was featured on Eater’s 38 essential Denver restaurants list this past summer. It has a 4.5star cumulative rating on Yelp and a 4.9 rating out of 5 on Facebook.
“I have looked at reviews in L.A., New York and here, and I am like, ‘This is definitely the nicest crowd,’ ” she said. “And L.A. is the meanest. I feel like maybe struggling screenwriters are getting their frustrations out on restaurants.”
A native Texan, Glover was surprised to see two cities in her home state ranked so highly for harshness. She feels Denverarea people understand the hospitality industry and appreciate the work that goes into it. As the scene matures, though, like those in Houston, San Francisco and New Orleans, she thinks negative reviews may pile up and average ratings will go down.
“I feel like that will start to happen here eventually,” she said. “It just isn’t ready yet.”
Home Run Inn’s analysis also rated cities on how opinionated they are. Based on sheer number of reviews, Chicago tops that list. Denver again is near the bottom, coming in at 23. The analysis does not weigh population when determining how opinionated one place is over another, so maybe it is no surprise that Chicago, population 2.7 million, produces more restaurant reviews than 700,000person Denver.
Then again, London was ranked the least opinionated city, and it is home to more than 8 million people, so cultural factors could be at play.
The analysis also provides some insight into the behaviors of reviewers on different review platforms. Facebook reviewers were the most generous, it found. Yelp, meanwhile, collected both the most reviews and the lowest ratings.