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Zagat Survey
Rating Details »
Category: Print Media [Edit]
Neighborhoods: Theater District, Hell's Kitchen4 Columbus Circle
3rd Floor
(between 8th Ave & Broadway)
New York, NY 10019
(212) 977-6000
- Nearest Transit:
-
59th St-Columbus Circle (1, A, C, B, D)
57th St-7th Ave (N, Q, R, W)
7th Ave-53rd St (B, D, E)
- Hours:
Mon. 6:00 a.m. - 5:30 a.m.
16 reviews for Zagat Survey
Its all about the data and manually compiled ratings (much more detail than a single five star manipulated yelp rating).
Unlike a previous windows mobile version which i enjoyed, you get no data if you're in the subway or otherwise out of signal range (or in central park when the network is full). What an excellent value at those times. (not!) (yelp app works the same, but its does not cost 10 bucks)
However, my biggest problem is usability - advanced searches must be started over from scratch and not where you left off if you need to jump out the program for a second. Extremely annoying. And you can't save a search either, the most you can do is add specific restaurants from one to a favorites list. Also, other annoying things like duplicates of the same address (when the restaurant has only one location) makes you wonder if the same kind of attention to detail is given to the underlying ratings as it does to the very sucky iphone app.
Don't pay for the guide. Instead, take a survey annually and you will get one free. I heard nothing good about Tim and Nina Z., but they run a tight ship and are successful at what they do so props to them. Many other guides are trying to follow suit. By the immortal words of Grand Puba, "Some try to copy but they still can't sketch it."
The original restuarant guides and still remains popular. However, they limit who can post comments in their surveys both online and print (paid subscription required). They take comments from patrons and re-word it to put into the books which are noted in quotes such as "elbow-to-elbow" seating.
Zagat Survey move over as you've got competition with Michelin; http://Yelp.com, and New York City Search.
Its like yelp in a book but the opinions of one person in a book :(, most of the time i avoid it as much as i can used it 2x and out of the 2x times it was not good for me the review did not match my experience :( - I give zagat 1 star
I "got" my new 2007 Zagat Survey "in the mail today". I "read it" with "great anticipation." It "bothers me" that "I have no idea" who is "making these comments". It "seems there are" a lot of "people" out there doing their "best to" use "bad puns" and "uniquely identifiable" phrases to "find out" if their "review" made it "into the book". I'd rather "know" who "made the comments" and "find out a little more" about their "reference points" to "understand" whether I can "trust" their "viewpoint". It's possible that "Zagat was born" before the Internet "took off" so they are now an "old line institution" trying to "compete" with "user review" sites like yelp but are "poorly positioned" because between the time they "went to press" and the time I "got the book", the whole world has "changed".
"If only" there "were a way" to get "up to date" information on restaurants and be able to "judge the reviewer's reference points".
Oh yeah. There is.
"Yelp."
Zagat's was ZaShit in 1997 when there was no other place to get aggregated restaurant reviews. It was always a pain in the ass to search through, it didn't have new and/or 'unworthy' restaurants, and the reviews were the equivalent of reading a news story by some psychopath cutting up various news stories and pasting them together in a barely coherent mess but it was still a must-have.
Now they've done a pretty good job with the site. It's easier to search through than the book. They've added new restaurants (and add the #s in later) and allow users to post reviews.
But it's not enough. There's no personality to it. What the fuck does 20 in food really mean? Maybe there are some dishes that are great, some stink. How would one rate if it's only good for drinks? And while the estimated $$ amount is nice, isn't it easy enough to look up the menu online and calculate that way?
So in Zagat-ese:
"Old-school favorite" that's "a bit past its peak" but still delivers "dependable" if "outdated" product to a loyal audience of "luddites" and "sloths" who think "Thailandian food" and "Mojihitos" are "interesting concepts but a little risque" for their tastes.
Should I call it the poor person's Yelp or a rich person's Citysearch? What was once a dominant player in the restaurant critic playing field, is now slowly trickling down as a has been for the rest of the internet savvy world. Word of Mouth will always been the most effective ploy in getting others to try new things or dissuade them from ever doing so, yet Zagat has tried to overcome the odds by printing a "I told you so" version of what they consider to be the top ::insert:: of ::insert city::. While its certainly not bad, I must stress that its not good enough as there are too many things that need to be considered. A small paragraph with borrowed quotes from survey takers isn't enough to describe a place for me and doesn't chime with my senses the way the paragraph was meant to imply.
Whats worse, is Zagat is a "pay for service" that includes a "monthly fee" for updated "restaurant listings" and the "hottest spots" in the city. I could just shoot for the "printed version" of the "year's best" but I don't think that would be so wise. "Yelp" is the way to go in this scenario and its "constantly changing interface" and "free" services with "real people and real reviews" give it the "upper edge over Zagat."
For years i have used this as almost a Bible for NYC and other cities. The reviews and sorting are easy to use and dead on 100% of the time.
Natasha is . . . wondering what to do with the free 2008 Zagat she just got in the mail.
Hmmm...
What to do?
What ... to ...do?
P.S. Thanks for ROTD, Yelp!
Sure, I'll give you 5 stars. You'll just have to pay me for them, star by star. Let the bidding begin.
Screw you...I'm going to Yelp...
For some reason I never think about or notice Zagat's stickers when I'm in the bay area. I'm visiting Philly and NYC and I see Zagat's stickers on every restaurant door. Mind you, none of the stickers tell you the rating; they just tell you that they were rated. Do folks still use this? Why isn't there a Yelp sticker anywhere? They could have little semacodes (http://semacode.org/) on them so you could easily look up the reviews.
I'll have to pay more attention when I get back home and see if Zagat's is alive and well in the bay area.
I guess Zagat is still around for those that are not savvy enough to find reviews on other sites and need the hard copy. I am drawing a blank on where you can find restaurant, shops, doctor, museum reviews in one place; but I know there is a website out there I have seen that does it.
I mean how needs reviews that are most likely years old, I want to see a review from someone who went there on a Tuesday and what they think of other places. Oh well let the old-timers have their book.
Help, I think the site I was referring to rhymes with 'help', xelp, zelp, kelp, I am not sure, Google it you might be able to find it.....
If Zagat was the bomb, this site wouldn't exist, so thanks for sucking so bad, Zagat.
I almost was forced to go to Chinese food in Chinatown due to an out-of-town colleague who had armed himself with Zagat and biblical notions of self importance. When I mentioned Yelp he just laughed....in the end, I won and we ended up at a real restaurant that didn't have to pay for a review.
http://Zagat.com now offering online reservations for select restaurants via http://opentable.com. I always thought this was a smart thing to do for review-based sites.
I never found them useful anyway - I'll stick with all your opinions on Yelp!
I, too, prefer YELP. You can get a free copy of Zagat if you review enough places online.