‘It’s focaccia babe’
A popular deli in Ancoats has issued a tongue-in-cheek response to a scathing one-star review left on Google.
The reviewer described Ancoats Deli on Murray Street, which has a 4.6-star rating overall and dozens of five-star reviews, as the ‘most overrated spot’ in the area. They claimed the sandwiches sold there were ‘thinly filled, unhealthy, bland and absolutely slathered in oil’.
The user, who posted under an anonymous name, said ‘there are literally dozens of better sandwich spaces in and around Ancoats’ as they left the one-star rating. They rated food as one out of five, service as one out of five and atmosphere as one out of five.
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But the deli and bar responded with a playful three-word comeback commenting ‘it’s focaccia babe’. They shared the lighthearted response on the Ancoats Deli Instagram page, where it was met with dozens of comments praising the food and service.
One user wrote: “Actually they’re absolutely delicious, beautiful fillings, fresh focaccia and lovely staff to boot.” Another said: “WHAT? I visited recently and I died and went to heaven. My sandwich was fabulous.”
Owner India Morris said it was important to respond because the review was ‘so ridiculous’. The 33-year-old told the Manchester Evening News: “I understand that one-star reviews are serious and very detrimental to businesses, but this one was just so ridiculous and the review from this person was just mental.
“I was speaking to my general manager in the Whatsapp chat and we were like ‘it’s literally just focaccia babe, what’s the issue’. I said just reply with that.”
India added: “It sounds like this person has never been in. The bread is literally made from oil.
“We got reviewed one-star across the board for service, food, atmosphere. Which is just not true, the person that left the review has also always reviewed everyone else one-star as well.”
India said one-star review ratings, when untrue, can lead to damage for hospitality business. “We obviously don’t like real bad reviews from customers and we reply to those but when you do you get something like that you do have to make a joke out of it”, she said.
“What’s important to me is making sure the staff don’t feel like they’ve done something wrong. We’re very lucky that what we actually have is a good product and everything else hopefully matches up to that so I’m not too worried about it, but my concern across the board for other businesses is that people who have nothing better to do are trying to cause people’s businesses harm in a climate that is already difficult for independent hospitality businesses.
“When you get a review like that unless you make light of it it becomes a problem. I think it’s if something as ridiculous and damaging as that you should respond.”
She added: “The team are really pleased with how everybody has got behind us and all the positive comments. I think the sad thing is I don’t think people understand how much damage a review can do.”
This came following the M.E.N’s look into one-star review problem at Manchester’s restaurants earlier this year. Google pointed out they will only act to remove reviews if they violate content policies or local laws.
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