“I made my shed the top rated restaurant on Trip Advisor”

“I made my shed the top rated restaurant on Trip Advisor”

Just a little while ago, we told you that we f**ken love a cheeky bastard here at Ozzy Man Reviews. We waxed lyrical about the way the heavens bless them, blokes want to be them and sheilas want to be with them. Well, you’d better f**ken brace yourself because, in the words of Kevin Bloody Wilson, we’re bringing it back around. This time, one cheeky larrikin has swindled the sh*t out of trip advisor and got an imaginary restaurant in his shed to the number one spot on TripAdvisor’s listings…

Credit: Oobah Butler/Vice

Deadset, this is a f**ken cracker of a tale. It’s one for the ages. Not only did this legend convince the world that his imaginary restaurant was the best in London, he got people eating spruced up microwave dinners and loving it. Also, here’s a disclaimer for you: this is a quick rundown of an epic tale. The video down the bottom has all the fine details.

Credit: Chris Bethell/Vice

Credit: Chris Bethell/Vice

To understand exactly why, let’s go straight to the horse’s mouth. Oobah Butler, a features writer for Vice, used to write dodgy reviews for restaurants trying to promote their businesses on TripAdvisor. This, naturally, gave him the idea for the stunt.

Credit: Chris Bethell/Vice

Credit: Chris Bethell/Vice

“I had a revelation: Within the current climate of misinformation and society’s willingness to believe absolute bullshit, maybe a fake restaurant is possible? Maybe it’s the kind of place that could be a hit? In that moment, it became my mission. With the help of fake reviews, mystique, and nonsense, I was going to do it: turn my shed into London’s top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor.”

Once he came up with the idea, they set up the TripAdvisor account using a few devious methods they’d learned from past experiences. Then it was just a case of bumping the place up the listings. At first, running the busy – but still rather ersatz – restaurant was an exercise in telling possible customers they were booked out and avoiding any actual chance to cook food for people.

Credit: Oobah Butler/Vice

Of course, this doesn’t take into account the photos of their delicious-looking food. Using a bunch of common household items, and his own foot, he faked the food. Now, let’s be honest, it looks pretty f**ken tasty. Still, you probably shouldn’t eat the sh*t. It mightn’t end well.

Once actual guests were coming though, Oobah had to make sure he had real food. Here’s how he did it: everyday, cheap-as-chips microwave dinners. As we said, cheeky. On top of that, Oobah had to make sure his backyard – which, to be fair, looked pretty f**ken ordinary to begin with – could meet the exquisite standards of the best restaurant in town.

Credit: Oobah Butler/Vice

Credit: Oobah Butler/Vice

A quick clean-up job, a DJ playing hotel ambience, a mate who’s a chef and another friend to help and Bob’s your f**ken uncle. Finally, a few blindfolds to get customers into the ‘top’ restaurant without realising it was just some bloke’s shed meant the plan could be put in motion. From there, it was all about sticking to the bit.

Did it work? Well, people wanted to come back…

“I barrel down the garden and scream the news: “They want to book again!” Joe, Trevor—all the crew—look at me. We erupt into laughter. “I’m not surprised,” says Phoebe, showing me the customers’ feedback, which is roundly excellent—possibly because I didn’t charge any of them for anything (the whole evening was free because “we were documenting it for a TV show”), but also possibly because they really did have an excellent time.”

Credit: Oobah Butler/Vice

“So there we go: I invited people into a hastily-assembled collection of chairs outside of my shed, and they left thinking it really could be the best restaurant in London—just on the basis of a TripAdvisor rating. You could look at this cynically—argue that the odor of the internet is so strong nowadays that people can no longer use their senses properly. But I like to be positive. If I can transform my garden into London’s best restaurant, literally anything is possible.”

Credit: Oobah Butler/Vice

Final thought: This all really goes to show just how willing we are to accept complete and utter bullsh*t as fact if it fits the narratives we know. It seems that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. If it’s not, tell me why people who’d probably turn their nose up at a TV dinner f**ken love it when it’s given to them in a ‘top’ restaurant. F**ken gold!

Just in case you missed it, here’s one of Ozzy’s latest commentary videos…Ozzy Man Reviews: Mega Compilation 8

H/T: VICE.