All Hell Breaks Loose After Man Shares Negative Review Of Worcester Steak And Cheese Restaurant In Food Review Facebook Group

 

A new steak and cheese place called Ziggy Bombs is all the rage in Worcester these days. It began with a man named Mike Devish who invested in a food truck that became so popular he needed a store front, which he recently opened in downtown Worcester, right across the street from the Turtleboy statue. They will pretty much put anything on a steak and cheese, and they make their own soda.

Personally, I’m not about that life. Steak and cheese is steak and cheese. I love buffalo chicken, but I don’t need it with my steak and cheese. To each their own though.

They also apparently do not serve steak and cheese grinders that don’t have peppers and onions in them, and they laugh when anyone asks.

Personally, I detest peppers and onions, and I object to the fact that this comes as a default in a steak and cheese. The best steak and cheese comes with three things – bacon, mushrooms, and mayonaise. Ideally customers should have the opportunity to decide what goes on their sandwich. People who have eaten there insist that you barely know the peppers and onions are in it, which begs the question – why add it at all then? But, it’s their business, and they’re extremely popular so they must be doing something right.

For some reason the Telegram and Gazette runs a Facebook food critic group called Worcester Eats that has over 56K members, and puts Greg Bates’ North Shore Eats to shame. Ziggy Bombs has been all the rage in that group, and up until now almost all of the commentary has been mostly positive. There are consequences for being negative.

Anyone who dared not enjoy their visit to Ziggy Bombs understood that they must keep their opinions to themselves on a page designed for discussion about food in Worcester. Ya know, because the owner worked hard, or something.

Shame on you all for not enjoying the sweet taste of hard work in your sandwich.

A man named Dylan Lorditch posted about his visit there yesterday and learned the hard way that the Ziggy Bomb Mafia won’t stand for anything except positive reviews.

You knew he was gonna take shit for this because he quite obviously called himself a “Worcester food critic” in a sarcastic manner. The amount of people on the Internet who can’t detect obvious sarcasm is a real problem plaguing our society. Newsflash – a person calling themselves a Worcester anything should be a red flag that the person is making a joke.

I also don’t care about the gimmicky stuff they offer because no one is forcing you to get crab raccoon on your sandwich. The part about the french fries is moot because when I get a steak and cheese I don’t french fries, and I’m pretty sure McDonald’s leaves their fries lying around in a pan too, and no one complains about that.

Other than that I think his commentary was fair. I don’t want peppers and onions in my steak and cheese, and you definitely can’t have people smoking outside your business.

Smoking cigarettes is nasty, and the best thing we’ve done as a society in the last 20 years is make smoking as difficult and uncool as possible. I remember going to Leitrims back in the day and coming home smelling like the hallway of a Lincoln Street triple decker because everyone was smoking around you. Once you had to go outside to smoke everyone just stopped smoking because it was a pain in the ass. The last thing I wanna be greeted by at any sort of respectable eatery is a bunch of people ripping butts in front of the entrance. I know that people in the food service industry smoke, but just go out back or across the street or something.

And I’m sorry, but anyone who gets a sub that looks like this has a legitimate gripe:

 

 

Come on now. You can’t defend that. How you gonna sell a Velveeta creampie and call it a sandwich?

But because he dared to talk about his experience at a restaurant in a Facebook group designed to have discussion about Worcester restaurants, he had to deal with the wrath of the Ziggy Bomb Mafia. One guy immediately did the rational thing and wish death upon him by crashing into a tree.

“Go be a transgender.”

Well that escalated quickly. The Walmart Jesus was pretty good, but the rest seems a little over the top. It’s just food, man.

The post got hundreds of shares and comments, and for some reason the Turtlegram and Gazette decided to turn off commenting because they hate fun and entertainment.

“We don’t turn off comments.”

You literally just turned off comments, but OK.

One of the first to comment was the owner, who fired back with this passive-aggressive post:

That’s the kind of response you leave when you know that you’re doing so well that you can afford to lose that person’s business. But as someone who also runs a highly trafficked and sometimes controversial page, I used to be real cunty like that on the Turtleboy Facebook page with critics, and I regret being like that. If you’re making it seem like that you can afford to be dismissive to customers who didn’t have the best experience then you lose your appeal as the underdog people are rooting for.

Let’s be honest – that sandwich looked like the Green Bay Packers ran train on it. If I were the owner I would’ve responded by offering to have him come down, have another one on the house, and see if they could make it right. Maybe even ask him to post about it the second time. What a nice ending that would’ve been. That’s the kind of thing you do when you want to make it seem like you value customer feedback and want to make your product as good as it can be. Some people like owners who aren’t afraid to mix it up with unfair reviews online, but this one seems completely fair. People like humble, and I think people would’ve noticed and appreciated it more if he had taken that approach.

But again, he’s obviously doing well for himself so my opinion doesn’t really mean shit. Plus, he had the Ziggy Bomb Mafia there to protect the business’ honor. First you had the people defending the smoking.

“Seems like you really don’t know a thing about kitchen staff.”

Good point John. People who think it’s unappealing to go into a restaurant and walk through a Newports gauntlet don’t know anything about kitchen staff. Everyone knows that kitchen staff are required by law to stand outside the place where they’re making food and rip butts. That’s just Business 101.

Then there were the people who didn’t get the obvious sarcasm about being a Worcester food critic.

Wait a minute, you’re telling me some guy named Dylan on a Facebook group isn’t a registered, licensed, and reputable food critic? This is outrageous!

Then there were the spelling and grammar police, of which there were many.

“Obviously not a professional critic.”

Dylan might’ve fooled some people, but nothing gets by Gene Flanders. We’ll just ignore this Cheese Whiz abortion because the OP forgot about i before e except after c.

The most common defense was the “you have to be nice to Ziggy’s because they can’t catch a break” commentary

Ziggy’s is arguably the most popular and highly discussed restaurant in Worcester. It’s getting free advertising because I’m blogging about it right now. It doesn’t matter if people are saying bad things about your business as long as they’re talking about your business. Other places would love for their business to be the center of conversation on a page with 56K members. Dylan leaving his review directly led to more business for Ziggy Bombs.

I think he’ll be OK.

He’s even got self promoting Tik Tok bros humble bragging about how they’d be willing to allow Mike Devish to have the honor of being featured on his channel.

Because if you have 1.2 million followers, and your videos of kids playing basketball and opening up presents gets you a few times more than our videos get with 1.2K followers on a page we never update, then I’m sure those numbers are legit.

Also, I guess we’re supposed to care about the owner’s background when we eat a steak and cheese.

Apparently you’re not a “true foodie” unless you recognize that resilience and overcoming adversity are the new salt and pepper.

But the real tragedy here was the memes.

Oh no! Muh memes!

Anyway, I’d still go to Ziggy Bombs and plan on doing so in the future. I think Mike is running a good business and I also think Dylan’s criticisms were valid. The real problem is the Ziggy Bombs Mafia that gets so personally butthurt when someone dares to share their opinions about food they bought and paid for. It’s a restaurant. Some people aren’t going to like it as much as you. Get over it.