Meet the Woman Who Wrote 1,373 Yelp Restaurant Reviews

Photo: Cecile Armand

Hannah Hong can’t remember the last meal she cooked. But if you’re a chef working in her neighborhood, chances are she remembers one of yours.

“I love food. I love learning about it. I want to engulf myself in everything about it,” said Hong, the elementary school teacher from Alexandria, Va., who has written 1,373 restaurant reviews since she joined Yelp in 2012, according to officials at Yelp. “A certain restaurant, a certain dish, a certain chef. I just want to try everything out there.”

Based on her output, it seems like she’s well on her way. She is a member of Yelp’s “Elite Squad” and one of the site’s most prolific and influential community members.

“Her numbers are insane,” Gretchen Powell, Yelp’s community manager for Northern Virginia, said with a laugh. “It’s something to be in awe of.”

Photo: Yelp

Unlike many of the short reviews found on Yelp, Hong’s write-ups average 300 to 400 words. She writes in a folksy, down-to-earth style that reflects the appreciative and dedicated restaurant/chef/food “fan girl” that she is. Packed with details, her reviews usually include the history of the restaurant, the quality of service, the ambience, the food, and even tips where to park.

“I can pull Hannah’s reviews out of a crowd because they’re filled with comparisons and small details,” Powell said. “She’s so enthusiastic.”

THE STAR SYSTEM

Hong, 31, pours her enthusiasm for food into each post and her writing skews positive. Her reviews are almost evenly divided among five-, four-, and three-star reviews. But she doesn’t pull punches when a dish or restaurant falls short of expectations. The one- and two-star reviews are reserved for food she finds inedible (or in some cases resulted in food poisoning), and service that was “rude, offensive, or non-existent.”

As we went to press, this is how Hong’s reviews broke down across all categories. Photo: Yelp

“Even if it’s the world’s worst restaurant and the worst food I ever put in my mouth, I don’t regret it, because I’ve experienced it,” said Hong, who prefers to stay anonymous while dining and never tells the staff about her Yelping. “If my experience is bad, it might not be so for others. Or the restaurant might be having an off night. It’s pretty rare when everything is just the pits. I do my research, so the chances of it being completely horrible is pretty slim.”

Hong believes in constructive criticism and sometimes includes comments on how to improve things. A general mistake many restaurants make, she said, is when they start chasing frivolous trends instead of focusing on their tried-and-true recipes and proven strengths. “You go into a restaurant one day and see why it’s known for something, then a few weeks later they change things,”  Hong said. “Consistency is a problem. It should be about making sure things are perfect every single time.”

Photo: 1789 Restaurant

"This was one of my favorites, as it was foamy, delicate, and so tasty!" Hong wrote about a fried oyster dish in her 4-star review of 1789 Restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Hong said she writes to share her experience and passion, not to wield any type of influence. But she and other online reviewers are changing the restaurant industry whether they realize it or not.

THE YELP EFFECT

“Learning From the Crowd,” a study by Michael Anderson and Jeremy Magruder, associate professors of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Berkeley, published in The Economic Journal in 2011, found that an extra half star on Yelp helped restaurants in San Francisco sell out tables at least 19 percent more frequently. Around the same time, “Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp,” a working paper by Michael Luca, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, found that a one-star increase in a Yelp rating led to a 5 to 9 percent increase in revenue for independent restaurants in the Seattle market.

“It’s hard to generalize for every business,” said community manager Powell. “But having a reputation for the best customer service or a friendly owner can make a difference in an uber-competitive field like retail or restaurants. People are looking more and more to make informed decisions about where they want to spend their money or their time.”

HOW SHE DOES IT

Hong’s love of food began at home growing up in Chicago. The family referred to her father as the “Grill King.” The Korean food cooked by her mother and aunt is still the best Hong has ever eaten. She didn’t become an official “foodie” until she met the man she would marry: Ghil, a video editor. On each date, they would visit a different restaurant and she would try flavors and cooking styles she didn’t know existed. Soon after, Hong found Yelp and discovered she could share her dining experiences with the public.

“Before I met my husband, I’d eat at local places, but I wasn’t very adventurous,” she said. “But as I began to discover so many different types of restaurants and that people would read my posts, it really became my hobby, my passion.”

Today, Hong plans her life around dining out. The process usually begins with what she’s craving. If her husband is busy, she’ll gather a group of friends and embark on a mini food tour. This helps lessen the cost of eating out so much because a bigger party can order more and everyone can try the various dishes. “We do a lot of sampling,” she said.

Photo: Hannah Hong

Shanghai Cafe, New York

She budgets carefully to afford her hobby. She noted that she and her husband don’t have children and that they try to be “smart consumers” when it comes to purchasing everything from gas to electronics. If a big splurge is on the horizon, such as an outing to a major Michelin-starred establishment, they’ll save in advance.

Although there are several places Hong loves in and around Alexandria, her No. 1 food city is New York, home to her very favorite restaurant (at least for now), Masa, chef Masayoshi Takayama’s shrine to perfectly prepared sushi.

Photo: Masa

Chef Masayoshi Takayama works his magic at Masa. “Each and every single bite was distinct, and each and every single bite was oh-so-fresh!” was how Hong described the food prepared by Takayama.

“You can request that Chef Masa serve you. When I saw him in the flesh, I freaked out,” she said. “He’s very personable, but very serious. He cuts fish with such precision. This was my first experience where each piece of sushi was so fresh and distinct and different.  He even told us when to add soy sauce and when not to. You didn’t have to think about or focus on anything but the food.”

No matter where she eats, Hong follows the same system: She orders a few highlights from the menu, talks to the servers and owners if possible, and photographs the dishes, menus, and décor. She jots down notes and emails herself reminders about the food. As soon as she returns home or to her hotel, she’ll immediately sit down and spend five to 10 minutes producing each review.

Photo: Hannah Hong

Hot Doug’s, Chicago

“I try to put in the information that I’d appreciate or enjoy reading,” she said.

And then she posts her review to Yelp. And then she gets up and does it again, and again, and again.

“It’s for the experience, the adventure. When I write about a restaurant, it’s like keeping a diary or a journal of my life,” she said. “I want to pique other people’s interests. It’s one of my main passions, so I make a point of keeping up with it.”

Correction: This article originally misstated the number of Hong’s restaurant reviews as 1,440; she has written 1,373 restaurant reviews since joining Yelp in 2012. The total number includes original reviews, plus updates of those reviews. 

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