(Alternate title: "A short rant about restaurants, reviews, blogs, and comments.")
It's not like it's a national secret or anything, how many restaurants will bend over backward to get positive reviews on the webs. Some do it in a better manner than others; putting out a little encouragement isn't exactly dishonest, just pushy in an obnoxious manner.
Some places, like Brooklyn Pizza Company in Tucson, AZ, meanwhile, go the more douche-y route...
If you're at all curious why our restaurant database closed down, it was largely because friends, family, and, even worse, owners of local restaurants spammed the site with glowing reviews under fake names. Note the plural there. Multiple reviews under different names. More often than not from the same IP address. Seriously, people.
These fake reviews rarely give a crap restaurant more than a few extra gasps of breath. People will make up their own minds. Granted, the way they make up their minds are often wrong -- Clinkerdagger's is still doing well last time I checked, proving there is such a thing as a wrong opinion -- which is why we're still posting our own reviews here. You know. On a personal blog. You might not agree with what we have to say, which is fine.
We've also gone the way of mostly turning off comments. Scroll down to the last third of this excellent post on Daring Fireball to learn why. You can still easily communicate with us on Twitter or even send us a blog post. We'd probably post it.
Or, you know, start your own blog. Soap boxes are awesome.