Amateur reviews changing approach of small businesses. Online ratings: It started with restaurants, and now all manner of enterprises find themselves subject to customer opinions

Samy Fars ran a successful restaurant for seven years in San Bruno before opening Cafe Grillades in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley last spring.

Fars planned to introduce the cafe gradually, opening with a small staff and working out the kinks before starting to advertise or even putting up a sign. That kind of soft opening has traditionally worked well in the restaurant business, because professional reviewers often don’t visit a new place until it has been open a month or more.

But from its first weekend, Cafe Grillades attracted a different type of reviewer — average customers who posted their opinions on a Web site called Yelp.

And, to Fars’ dismay, some of them slammed it mercilessly.

Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer

Full Story: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/03/BUG45KT0RH1.DTL&type=business