Don’t get crabby, Boise, but this seafood restaurant’s reviews smell fishy
If you’re hungry for information about O’Crab Cajun Seafood & Bar, a new restaurant planned at the Boise Spectrum, you can browse hundreds of reviews of the chain’s recently opened Nampa location.
Just don’t fall for them hook, line and sinker.
It’s no secret that online reviews aren’t always reliable. But O’Crab illustrates how ratings can vary wildly, and how trends can differ among platforms such as Yelp, Google and Facebook.
While some of the Nampa restaurant’s reviews appear credible, the majority of its positive Facebook ratings smell fishier than a sardine sandwich. They’ve raised a red flag in a local Facebook group, Southern Idaho Foodies, where members have been cautioned not to take the bait.
O’Crab rates a lowly 2 stars on Yelp, where some of the 42 reviews are cringe-inducing smackdowns. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t visited the Canyon County restaurant, which opened in July at 16808 N. Marketplace Blvd.
But, hey, maybe O’Crab was just working out the kinks? Employee scarcity has burdened the entire industry. Besides, O’Crab rates an encouraging 4 out of 5 stars on Google, with a whopping 524 reviews. (Incidentally, that seems like a freaking ocean of reviews for such a new place, right?)
But Facebook is where the scent of rotted chum fills the air. O’Crab’s rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. Scroll down the consistently brief, mostly uninformative reviews on O’Crab’s Facebook page. All 132 of them. Notice all the newly created accounts? How the profiles contain virtually no additional information? (Gazing at some of the reviewers’ photos, you may be reminded of the mysterious, attractive young women who periodically attempt to “friend” losers like myself on Facebook.)
“One of my favorite places to go to eat something,” a Facebook profile named “Remona Masterson” posted on Nov. 14. “The location is very good and provides excellent customer service. I highly recommend them!”
Those three sentences are the totality of the review. They’re also the exact same review posted by “Neva Bohren” one day earlier. To the word.
Living, breathing Idahoans have noticed. “Fake profile. Hope you didn’t pay too much for someone to do all these copy/paste reviews,” one Facebooker replied to the “Bohren” post.
Who knows how all these so-called reviews originated, or whether someone actually earned a few bucks deviously cranking them out.
What matters is that they do not help consumers make informed decisions. Nor do they instill trust in a business. It makes a person wonder how many of O’Crab’s positive reviews on Google should be considered dependable.
When O’Crab Cajun Seafood opens its Boise restaurant at 1749 S. Cole Road, will its online marketing follow a similar pattern? Should we expect “Masterson,” “Bohren” and their pals to share the same fawning Facebook assessments?
Either way, I might still be tempted to eat there. After all, some of those strangely worded reviews make the Nampa location sound uniquely attractive.
“This restaurant has delicious food,” brags one, “my favorite delicacy.”
What a coincidence. Mine too!
This story was originally published December 1, 2021 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Don’t get crabby, Boise, but this seafood restaurant’s reviews smell fishy."