Part
01
of one
Part
01
What are Toronto residents saying about Pizzeria Libretto, compared to people who live out of town?
Hello! Thank you for your research request to find out what Toronto residents are saying about Pizzeria Libretto compared to people who live out of town. The short version is, Toronto residents appear to review the restaurant somewhat higher than non-residents, but there is no significant difference in the content of their reviews. Both residents and non-residents seem equally concerned when it comes to bad service and low quality food. Below you will find a deep dive into my research methods and findings.
I conducted advanced Internet searches using a variety of keywords and query types. I sifted through information from trusted news sites, company websites, online ratings sites Yelp and TripAdvisor and social media feeds. I confined the results to within the last 6 months unless otherwise noted. I was not able to analyze reviews from YP Dine as suggested in the request because the reviewers do not indicate where they are from.
RESULTS
After extensive searching, I found quite a few comments from Toronto residents as well as people who live out of town, even in other countries. I have listed 5 comments from residents and 5 comments from non-residents in the sections below. Pizzeria Libretto has 4 locations in Toronto: Ossington, King Street, University Street and Danforth. Where possible, I noted which location the comment was about if the reviewer did not. Rather than paraphrasing, I used direct quotes for accuracy, and thus, there will be some typos and punctuation issues in them. For Yelp, I chose comment examples from the Recommended Reviews that were written by experienced reviewers. TripAdvisor reviews are from people who have done several reviews. Comments from social media were taken as they were.
Overall during my research, I saw far more positive comments than negative ones. I included a few negative examples because sometimes knowing what didn’t work can help more than knowing what did work.
OVERVIEW
In March-April of 2017, the Ossington location had several negative reviews on Yelp from both locals and out-of-towners. Some of the complaints were about poor service, the quality of the food (quite a few comments about burned food) and the noise level in the restaurant.
The Yelp reviews for the Danforth and King Street locations were overwhelmingly positive from residents and out-of-towners. There were also very positive comments on Yelp for visitors and locals about the University Street restaurant. After reading dozens of reviews from all the locations, it seemed like Toronto residents were rating higher overall than people from out of town.
Comments on TripAdvisor for all of the restaurants were overwhelmingly positive regardless of whether people are from Toronto or not, and I did not notice any difference in what people chose to write about. Similarly, I went through hundreds of Twitter and Facebook posts and did not see any negative comments or noticeable differences in the post topics.
After reading many, many reviews, I can conclude that Toronto residents seem to write more in their reviews than non-residents, and they tend to rate Pizzeria Libretto higher overall than non-residents. However, I got the impression that when it comes to food quality and customer service, there appears to be no significant difference between the number of bad reviews Pizzeria Libretto receives from local Toronto residents compared to non-residents; if it’s bad, it’s bad, regardless of where the customer is from. The same can be said for the positive comments (I did read a couple of negative comments by Americans that used more colorful language, however.) In addition, I did not detect any significant difference in the content of the reviews based on where the people were from.
COMMENTS FROM TORONTO RESIDENTS
From Twitter -
Jhoanna Laude @jhoannalaude May 7
@PizzaLibretto “our baby shower was incredible! your folks at the Danforth location took such great care of us!”
From Twitter -
Keisha Goberdhan ♡ @k_goberdhan Apr 6
Replying to @Chris_Path @PizzaLibretto
“We are slowly eating our way through their menu. Each appetizer, pizza and dessert we have tried has been delicious. Best pizza in Toronto.”
From Twitter -
g @jeahbambina Apr 2
“I never fail to have the best customer service at @PizzaLibretto. Oh, and food #fave”
From Yelp -
Austen B. 3/18/2017, Danforth location
Richmond Hill, Canada
“Nowhere close to my pizza standards. We started with the fried calamari which was terrible, it's just a sh*tty disjointed dish. The calamari wasn't that fresh and it wasn't fried properly, maybe the oil wasn't hot enough but it came out greasy without any detection of seasoning. It sat in two tasteless sauces which were supposed to a romesco which tasted really watered down. Outside of this was a pesto oil that again had zero flavour. I knew when we started this way it wasn't going to be a good meal. We then had a margarita and a white mushroom pizza. It's just not my thing eating pizza with an uncooked middle. It's gross. The crust was the best part but overall I give the pizza 3/10. We had some wine so $106 later I'll never give this mediocre chain another nickel of my pizza dollars.”
From TripAdvisor -
HMah 2/26/2017, University Street location
Toronto, Canada
“Recommended by friends, wife and stopped by for lunch. They had prix fixe menu of $25 for a salad, Pizza and desert. Salad and desert were just okay but the Pizza was fantastic. Basically had a cheese and tomato sauce pizza but it was fantastic because the pizza is made so thin. Easy to eat, not overly filling and lots of flavour. Shocked how good it was. Would go back.”
COMMENTS FROM OUT-OF-TOWNERS
From Twitter –
Wanda Harron @WandaHarron 23 Nov 2016
@PizzaLibretto "Thank u for the great meal tonite at your University Ave. location & we sure appreciated the excellent service from Sarah.”
From Yelp -
Tasha D. 6/5/2016
Barcelona, Spain
“Pizzeria libretto was a cute little spot on the Danforth with a small, but comfortable patio, nice service, draft beer, and good pizza. They don't offer pitchers, just pints. They have specials every day and my friend (who is a regular) always opts for the special. It was about 13-15$ for a pizza. It was VERY good. Thin crust, gooey cheese, eggplant, and lots of sauce. Yes please.”
From Yelp -
Kat M. 4/3/2017
Vancouver, Canada [Danforth location}
“I felt really taken care of here. We came in about an hour before close on a weekday so it was not busy at all. They had a pesto, mozzarella, roasted red pepper special goin on that night. But I just wasn't feelin the red pep so I added prosciutto and nixed the red pep. They offered to substitute another vegetable for no added cost but the prosciutto was $3 extra. I apologized for being confusing and our lovely waitress told us ‘as long as I know what you want on your pizza, we can make that happen for you’. Next came some bread with a delicious olive oil, vinegar and chilli oil and a little bit of pepper. It was all delicious! I would totally come back here. I want to try their cocktails next time. I only give it four stars so that I can bump it up next time.”
From Yelp -
Lidiya M. 3/8/2017
Los Angeles, CA [Ossington location]
This is a very long review covering service and food quality. You can follow the link to read the entire review, but here is a selected paragraph about the food:
“We got: a salami pizza, a roasted cremini mushroom pizza, and a special pizza (with prosciutto, goat cheese, onions, etc.). All of our pizzas were burnt. Not just like a little crisp on the side, but like an unpleasant burnt crunch. The salami was too burnt, the roasted cremini had an overwhelming amount of rosemary, and the special was an odd combination of flavors. Just unappealing. I was so disappointed by all three, I didn't get to eat a proper dinner. So f*cking mad. Still pretty f*cking mad. In fact, every time I pass by this place, i AM INFURIATED. FULL OF REGRET. How is this considered a top restaurant in Toronto?!”
From TripAdvisor -
The Lankan, one week ago, Ossington location
Rochester, Michigan
“Stopped in here for lunch after seeing the Vera sign outside. We ordered the calamari and meatballs for an appetizer and it was really good. However, their wood oven baked pizzas were awesome. They have great flavors from the wood oven. We ordered the Prosciutto pizza, Diavolo pizza and a Salami Pizza and all of them were perfect. I asked for a Coke and they told me they don't serve Coke but they have Blue Sky Soda which was good. We are from Michigan and we can't find pizza like that so we will be stopping in here again next time we are in Toronto. Staff was great too...”
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, Toronto residents appear to review Pizzeria Libretto somewhat higher than non-residents, but there is no significant difference in the content of their reviews. Both residents and non-residents seem equally concerned when it comes to bad service and low quality food.
Thanks for using Wonder. Please let us know if we can help with anything else!