Should you trust Google reviews when it comes to restaurants?

Everyone seems to use them – but should we rely on them?

The sky was grey, the rain fell in bursts and the woman standing next to me badly needed some pep. She downed two cans of a popular energy drink, belched loudly, then hurled her empties into a bin. Five minutes later, she emerged from a bakery carrying three more cans.

Sticking with drinks was the right idea. According to Google reviews, this West Auckland shopping centre is not the place to be hungry. “Smelled interesting… tasted bad,” said one online review for a nearby sushi store. “Tough as leather,” said another. “She’s trying to poison us!” exclaimed a third.

Six weeks ago, once the couches were shifted and the fridge was plugged in, I did what anyone who moves house does and jumped online to research takeaway options in my new neighbourhood, Massey. A new Eden Noodles was rated 4.0 (“tastes just like the OG spot on Dominion Road”) and a fried Korean chicken joint seemed promising at 4.6 (“the meat falls off the bones”).

But a nearby sushi store had the lowest Google review rating I have ever seen. Burger King Takanini is rated 3.3 (“so slow”) and McDonald’s Manurewa is just 3.1 (“an absolute disgrace”). But this sushi shop was rated just 1.6. Were the online critics right? Could sushi truly be this bad? And can we trust what those reviews say? It was time to sample some sushi.

***

Jay Zeylemaker knows how important an online review can be. As operations manager for the hospitality company Star Group, he’s in charge of 45 bars, pubs and restaurants across the North Island. He regularly surveys a range of online reviews for all of his venues. “We’re looking at these things daily,” he admits.

That shows how important online reviews are. Those reviews can come from multiple platforms, with TripAdvisor, Yelp, Reddit and Meta’s Facebook all offering the ability to read and post reviews. But Google reviews are the most prominent, with some surveys suggesting they dominates more than 70% of the market.

Some suggest the sweet spot for hospitality businesses is a rating above 4.2. Each of Zeylemaker’s businesses aims much higher, attempting to achieve a rating of 4.8. That’s why, if he sees a negative review, he jumps on it. “We’ll try to reach out to the customer directly to find out what’s happened so we can improve,” he says.

That’s exactly what he should be doing, says Bodo Lang. The Massey University marketing guru conducted his PhD studies in “word of mouth” marketing. Online reviews are the digital version of telling your mate how good or bad the sushi is. “They have a really big impact on consumer decision-making,” says Lang.

That’s because we’re all trying to minimise risk, says Lang. We don’t want to waste our time, our money – or damage our health, and reviews can help with that. “There can be physical risk, because you might become sick, or have diarrhoea, or die from the rotten salmon,” he says. In tough economic times, we’re trying to protect our dollars too. “Sushi can be expensive. [You don’t want it] to be disgusting.”

But negative reviews have far more impact than positive ones, confirms Lang. This mentality dates back to the times of cave people. “If a sabre-tooth tiger is nearby, you want to know about it immediately,” he says. “We are hardwired to respond really strongly and quickly to negative information.”

But cave people didn’t have the internet. These days, online information can be easily manipulated. Lang says he’s seen this for himself through his own research, including companies fudging positive reviews – and undertaking campaigns to besiege competitors with negative ones.

When contacted for comment, Google said reviews “must be based on real experiences”. “We take swift action against reviews that violate our policies or local laws – from removing the content, to disabling user accounts, and even pursuing litigation,” a spokesperson said. “Our advanced moderation systems detect and remove the vast majority of fraudulent content before it is ever seen.”

Either way, online reviews can make or break a business. Asked about the 1.6-star sushi, Lang says he wouldn’t buy it. Almost everyone spoken to for this story said they wouldn’t eat it, yet admitted they use Google reviews religiously. “I use it to see photos, get information and maybe a dish recommendation,” says former Metro editor (and editor of The Spinoff’s daily news briefing, The Bulletin) Henry Oliver. “But I don’t trust them.”

Jean Teng, a prominent food critic and editor of the foodie newsletter Cringe, uses online reviews regularly as a “vibe check” too. “I have certainly made decisions based on the review rating, particularly when I’m torn between two places and there’s no other way of distinguishing them,” she says. Teng’s advice is to always read the reviews, rather than just relying on the rating. “They can be quite cute and/or funny,” she says.

One foodie was scathing about online food reviews – and those who use them. “The people I distrust the most are the most active on Google reviews,” says Leni Ma’ia’i. The Auckland-based PR rep instead suggests conducting a “pulse check” by visiting the venue, looking in the kitchen and browsing the menu. “How busy is it? How clean are the chefs? How does the food look? Those are far more telling than some Karen on a keyboard.”

He may have a point. Zeylemaker, from Star Group, points out ratings can be skewed by how many reviews a business has. More than 100 reviews feels like a good sample. Anything lower could be inaccurate. “If a family of five have walked in there and had a negative experience, and they’ve all gone and left a review, that’s a small representation of reviews,” he says.

The sushi shop I’m considering eating at has just 13 reviews. Zeylemaker firmly suggests I ignore all of them. “I would encourage you to go there and form your own opinion.”

***

One recent Saturday lunch time, I parked my car, ran through the rain and approached the sushi shop’s front door. I stood there for 40 minutes trying to make a dining decision. Across the busiest time of day, and despite a neighbouring bakery doing a roaring trade in much more than energy drinks, no one purchased any sushi. Those Google reviews may have taken their toll.

Like Ma’ia’i suggested, I peered inside. An A-grade food safety rating was stuck to the wall. But there was barely any food available for sale – just three plastic tubs of sushi and a metal container filled with corn dogs. I couldn’t see into the kitchen, or spot any chefs. There were no customers to size up, no one to get a second opinion from.

The vibes felt bad, so I opened up the Google reviews. There were two five-star reviews, but they were from a year ago. Instead, like Lang suggested they would, it was the more recent negative reviews that stuck in my head. “Inedible,” said one. “Smelled very funky,” said another. They got the better of me. I love a decent journalistic endeavour – but potential food poisoning felt like a step too far.

Instead, I walked around the corner and into a Korean fried chicken shop, where I joined the back of a decent queue. I peered in the kitchen. It looked clean. The chef looked happy. The food on other tables looked delicious. I ordered a serving of soy garlic fried chicken. Sometimes the reviews are wrong, sometimes they’re bang-on – and sometimes you just have to go with your gut.