An Ohio lounge faces allegations of racism. So why is NC restaurant being targeted?
One night last week, COPA co-owner Elizabeth Turnbull saw 25 new online reviews for her downtown Durham Cuban restaurant, an unusually high number. Many left one star ratings.
The reviews, though, targeted the wrong restaurant.
In an online mix-up, the Durham COPA had been mistaken for a nightclub and restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio. That restaurant was facing allegations of discrimination from a group of diners in a viral TikTok video that’s been viewed more than half a million times. In the video, a group of Black women allege they were turned away from the restaurant because of the way they were dressed.
The online reviewers sought a popular kind of internet justice, responding to allegations of discrimination with a flood of negative restaurant reviews. Dozens of one-star reviews on Google and Yelp mistakenly alleged rats and roaches and racism at the Durham restaurant.
Turnbull fears the reviews and allegations could harm the restaurant at a vulnerable time. COPA, like all restaurants, suffered through a difficult 2020, facing COVID-19 restrictions and resulting financial losses. A bare bones staff pivoted from takeout to outdoor dining to half-full dining rooms. Recently, with COVID cases dropping and restrictions easing, the restaurant expanded its hours.
“The timing of this is terrible,” Turnbull said. “We’re just starting to ramp up dinner service. Now when people are checking us out, these are the reviews they see. It feels like a sucker punch out of nowhere.”
A best new restaurant
Turnbull and her husband, Roberto Copa Matos, closed their successful Old Havana Sandwich Shop in 2018 to open COPA, an upscale Cuban restaurant and cocktail bar, focusing on the Spanish influence of Cuban cuisine. News & Observer dining critic Greg Cox awarded it four stars and named it one of the year’s best new restaurants.
But online review sites like Yelp and Google have changed how restaurants are found. Now that COPA’s most recent reviews are studded with one stars on Google, Turnbull worries would-be diners will stay away.
“It’s very important, especially for new customers,” Turnbull said. “That’s the worst part, you don’t know about the lost opportunities. How many people saw those one-star reviews and looked elsewhere?”
Removing fake reviews
After Turnbull reached out, Yelp appears to have taken down the fake reviews.
But Turnbull has had less luck getting Google to remove the bad reviews, which continue to appear online. In the past week, COPA received a total of 31 new one-star reviews. Many make little effort to appear genuine, some writing of seeing roaches dancing across the floor and rats fighting over cheese.
“There’s not a whole lot of recourse,” Turbull said. “I’ve flagged every review four times and Google said it doesn’t violate their policy.”
The COPA owners have spent hours responding to the reviewers, saying they’ve got the wrong restaurant and pleading with them to take the reviews down.
“PLEASE, I ask that you please remove your negative review,” Turnbull writes. “We are a diverse, living wage certified business in DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA. Please don’t make our team pay for the mistakes of another.”
Turnbull said it’s difficult to say whether the reviews have had an immediate impact to business, but that there were more Saturday night cancellations than usual. Another night she watched as a family stopped in front of the restaurant, appeared to look it up on their phone, and then continued walking down the street.
“I don’t know if they didn’t like my menu, or they didn’t like my reviews,” Turnbull said.
Cancel culture
Often, Yelp, Google and a restaurant’s social media accounts become the first lines of contact when a business or its owners are embroiled in controversy. A famous example is when the Lexington, Virginia restaurant the Red Hen declined to serve former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The restaurant’s Yelp page became a battleground of political viewpoints, instead of a review of what’s good to eat.
Last year, The New York Times reported that Yelp plans to take a more active role in policing activity beyond the scope of the business, specifically when a business faces allegations of racist behavior. Instead of dozens of negative reviews, the site itself will post a disclaimer linking to news report of the allegations.
Though the alleged incident occurred 500 miles away, Turnbull worries it will be an internet flash in the pan.
“Something terrible happened, a clear act of discrimination,” she said. “That’s getting buried under the internet cancel culture approach. That makes me sad for the women and frustrated.”
Though geography poses a challenge, Turnbull said she’d love to serve the women who say they were turned away by the Ohio restaurant.
“I do wish something good could happen out of this,” Turnbull said. “Cincinnati is far away, but I would love to feed these women supper.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2021 at 10:54 AM with the headline "An Ohio lounge faces allegations of racism. So why is NC restaurant being targeted?."
