Does Happy Cow Hurt Well Intentioned Businesses offering plant-based vegetarian options?
You may be wondering what happy cow is? It is a website that promotes vegetarian and plant-based restaurants as well as restaurants that offer plant-based food. So, as a restaurant that fits this description, why would we have an issue with a website promoting vegetarian restaurants? Especially considering that we have an excellent rating on their website, and our restaurant is promoted there... Here's why, and I believe their inflexibility should caution any business from offering plant-based alternatives without an understanding of the impact from websites like this that promote vegetarian restaurants. I say this as a vegetarian myself, who raises vegan children; so this is based on my non-judgemental first-hand experience as a vegetarian and a business owner. I only came to this conclusion after reaching out to them and trying to get this resolved directly with them for the past few years. Instead, my public comments on their forums were not approved and I have never received a response to any of my emails or concerns. Ultimately, my opinion is that because they are in large big cities, and are extremely privileged, they do not care about the impact that they have on those of us who live in small rural or suburban areas who don't have the same luxury as big cities to target only a specific niche group. I was surprised, after 25 years of support, and being part of their organization as an individual, they would simply ignore my pleas as a struggling small business owner working to heavily promote plant-based food in our restaurant, to our own detriment. Anyway, here's my article about my experience with Happy Cow:
The Unintended Consequences of Well-Intentioned Ratings
It's a perplexing irony: platforms like Happy Cow, designed to uplift businesses promoting plant-based eating, can inadvertently harm those same restaurants. This phenomenon extends beyond just Happy Cow, impacting any establishment listed on aggregate rating sites, especially when factors like AI and evolving consumer behaviors come into play.
The Happy Cow Conundrum
Happy Cow's well-intentioned practice of assigning lower ratings to restaurants that also serve meat creates a ripple effect. In an era where aggregate data is king, a 4-star rating on Happy Cow—no matter the quality of its plant-based offerings—can drag down a restaurant's overall online rating. This particularly affects businesses in areas where veganism isn't mainstream, such as rural communities.
These conscientious owners, often champions of plant-based eating within their communities, are penalized for their inclusivity, rather than rewarded. The current system discourages restaurants from even offering vegan options, as they fear a potential hit to their overall rating. A 5 star restaurant, with a 4 out of 5 stars at most on Happy Cow, lowers the aggregate rating on Google search and other major platforms, tarnishing the reputation of businesses trying to cater to vegetarians and vegans. It creates a lose-lose scenario: either cater exclusively to a niche clientele, or face a ratings penalty for trying to serve everyone.
The AI Factor
AI-driven review aggregation further complicates the issue. These algorithms often prioritize overall ratings, potentially burying restaurants with lower Happy Cow scores, regardless of the quality of their vegan fare. This creates a visibility problem, making it harder for potential customers to find these businesses.
Beyond Happy Cow: A Broader Problem
The issue extends to other review platforms as well. Any specialized rating system risks creating unintended consequences when its data is mixed with broader aggregate scores. It's a balancing act: how do we support niche businesses without penalizing their broader efforts? Ultimately, this is something that websites like Happy Cow should work on figuring out. If the goal is to promote a vegetarian lifestyle, or make it easier to find vegetarian and vegan options, than the focus should be on encouraging, rather than discouraging, diverse and inclusive restaurants to offer plant-based options.
A Call for Evolution
It's time for a reevaluation. Review platforms, AI algorithms, and consumers alike need to evolve. We need nuanced systems that acknowledge a restaurant's full spectrum, rewarding their commitment to plant-based options without punishing them for serving a diverse community. While it is possible to be a vegan-only restaurant in large cities and regions where there are millions of people, in towns with less than 5,000 people, and just over a million people in the state of New Hampshire, it is not possible to stay in business with such a narrow focus. Despite offering the largest vegetarian menu with vegetarian options of any restaurant I have ever been to (no exageration, and I've been vegetarian since 1993 and have been to many of the well known and less known vegetarian restaurants throughout Southern and Northern California), vegetarians only represent about 3-5% of our business, despite all of the resources used in order to support offering plant-based food. It would not be possible for us to offer food only to vegans and remain in business.
This narrow focus of privileged people in large cities does far more harm than good. It's easy to judge small family owned businesses like ours from your dorms in Boston, or your apartments in NYC, or your lofts in Westwood in L.A., but you are actually doing more harm than good, as it encourages businesses like ours to abandon efforts to offer any plant-based options. For many, this has been a starting point to a plant-based diet; trying our vegan options and slowing transitioning into a mixed or full plant-based diet. I always thought that was the way to reduce harm, to help increase the amount of plant-based options, which reduce harm, rather than harming small businesses trying to make a difference.