It doesn't matter if it's a patron of our website, the owner of a restaurant, or some rather iffy trolls; YAMU always gets asked this question:
"Do you, YAMU, accept financial compensation afore embarking on restaurant reviews?"
Sigh. Let's get to it.
What Does YAMU Do?
We specialise in content. Essentially content concerned with – but not limited to – restaurants, current affairs, lifestyle, news and features. Mostly though, we deal with food. You're looking at restaurant reviews, write-ups, round-ups, blog posts; the whole jingbang all conducted with the purpose of informing the general public on what's in, what's new and what's happening.
So if there's a dish type or restaurant you have in mind, just type it into the search bar and you'll find all the info you need.
How Do Our Reviews Work?
There are two ways.
1) Someone in the office hears about a new restaurant.
2) Someone who owns/knows of a restaurant gets in touch with us and requests for a review.
That's literally it. Allow me to elaborate.
The first line is self-explanatory, so I won't get into it. The second one pertains to all the email and messages and DMs we receive from random citizens and restaurant owners alike asking us to drop in for a review.
We respond to these requests by informing them that our reviews are conducted anonymously, and that the food will be paid for out of pocket.
"Nah, YAMU's Reviews are Sponsored."
We have an entire list of rules and guidelines if you'd like to give it a read. But nobody ever does, so I'll make a short list for you.
- We don't accept paid reviews. We're assigned a budget via the office and all of it gets spent on reviews.
- We don't provide coverage for events via our Instagram / Facebook platforms for the sake of PR where reviews are concerned. The rest of the website runs on a few sponsorships here and there, but that's about it.
- Our biggest role here is to remain as anonymous as possible. So no calling places up and informing them of our arrival. All our trips are kept super-incognito.
These are three of our basic rules, but if you're interested in going into detail, click here.
But What Gives YAMU The Right To Review Restaurants, Sarah????
Our job designations, really. Anyone who interviews to be part of the editorial team has to possess some basic knowledge of food, be up to par with certain culinary terms and whatnot but only slightly. Our reviews are dependant on the writers themselves and their own, uniquely individual personalities.
Writers are trusted with the job of producing reliable, 100% honest content based on the experiences they have at each restaurant/place. So no lies, no degrading comments or remarks. False remarks or insults don't fly here, so if we slip up, Indi is going to yell at us.
Or worse, give us a lecture.
So WHEN exactly do you guys accept cash? How does your site work without sponsorship? What are all these ads ON THE FRONT PAAAAAAGE?
Doesn't this header here look messy and horrendous? That's pretty much what our comments section/inboxes look like. It's a gnarly sight to look at, and we have to go through this almost every day.
We DO have sponsors for our website. That's how any media publication runs. They run advertisement banners/sliders on the site, so that's why you see the occasional Kingsbury ad or whatever up there.
Certain blog posts are sponsored as well. The entire Editorial team is considering a rebellion against sponsored blog posts, but the sales team is ruthless and we gotta make the $$$ some way or the other, men. We hate it because people try to change our style of writing from informal and informative, to advertorial which is a BIG NO.
We keep fighting the good fight for all our readers though because after all, we're your friend in the city.
Nobody can touch us where reviews are concerned. We go through death threats, threats against personal safety, personal attacks, insults and all manner of wonderful happenstances- JUST because we eat stuff and write about it.
Conclusion
We've been getting a lot of emails and questions lately on how YAMU functions when it comes to reviews. We hope this NON-SPONSORED blog post provides adequate info. If you've missed all the links scattered throughout the page and are interested in reading more, click here.
Tl;dr: No, we don't do paid reviews.
