Honesty Revisited

Last week I wrote about my experience with Revitalive Cafe in Newburyport, MA, and it was written in my typical snarky and honest-to-a-fault fashion. For the first time in my life, I had a bad experience at a vegan restaurant and I personally wasn’t a huge fan of the food, so I wrote about my impressions and didn’t hold back – mainly because I write without a censor. When it comes to this blog, I don’t hold back at all because this is my one outlet, the place where I write about my passion: road tripping, animal rights, and vegan eats. I always like to say that I’ll be blatantly honest with you all, even if you don’t like it.

What I didn’t consider is that I now have readers of this blog, stretching far and wide, and the internet’s reach is much farther than we’d care to admit. So when I wrote about my personal opinion of Revitalive, it seems that my less-than-positive experience and the way I handled it weren’t positively received. In fact, somehow my experience with Revitalive got onto to the computers of readers who have had great experiences there, many of whom are quite upset with me and the way I handled what I just considered to be an honest and 100% personal opinion of the one lunch I had at the Cafe in mid-July.

I can assure you it wasn’t my intention to hurt anyone or offend, and I certainly didn’t mean to imply that I was judging any of Revitalive’s employees. In fact, I just thought that the staff seemed overwhelmed by the crowds, and I felt bad for the way the employees had to run up and down stairs to check on whether certain menu items were in stock. When I talk about raw foodies, I do so in a joking manner, mainly because I sometimes find the raw food movement to be sort of amusing, with the talk of raw food “glow” and other such things that are supposed to come with a raw food diet. If it didn’t come across as a joke, obviously I need to self-edit more! I write about this stuff in a cheeky manner because I’m totally a believer in raw food, hence the talk about the raw food religion from the original post, but also because I sort of have one eye towards the skeptical. I always take every cure all with a grain of salt. These are my own personal beliefs and issues if you will. They are not in any way a reflection of Revitalive or a judgement towards people who eat raw food. If this went too far and it upset you, it was never my intention. 

That said, I won’t be taking down the original post about Revitalive simply because I do believe in honesty. I personally didn’t enjoy my meal there, but as evidenced by the comments and emails I’ve received, others feel quite strongly about Revitalive. Maybe I caught them on a bad day or maybe it’s not my type of food. Again, these are just my opinions on my blog, a little informal piece of the internet where I write about my thoughts on food and veganism. I suggest you give Revitalive a try for yourself! Reach out to the owners if you’re there and let them know what you think. And let me know too! I’m curious to hear.

Be honest. That’s what I try to do.

A few readers have called into question my integrity, wondering whether I was in some way affiliated with Sip, the smoothie place I also mentioned in the post about Revitalife. I want to go on record here and say that for one thing I’m in no way affiliated with Sip or any other restaurant in Newburyport, MA. I live in Washington, DC and was visiting Newburyport for the day. In fact, I’ve only been to Newburyport a few times in my life, even though I’m originally from the Boston area. Before July, I’d never been to Sip or Revitalive, and though I had long been planning a trip to Revitalive (based on the awesome reviews I’d heard), I stumbled upon Sip by accident, and had one smoothie there, which I shared with my sister.

To suggest that I’m somehow affiliated with Sip and am purposefully posting negative reviews about Revitalive is just plain ridiculous. First of all, I can promise all of you right now that I do not work for any restaurant or any person affiliated with a restauant. If I ever do, you’ll be the first to know. In fact, I’m self-employed and work for a variety of people in the Washington, DC area, none of whom have anything to do with food and also none of whom are located in the New England area. Secondly, I would never compromise my integrity as a writer and post a review about a restaurant or product if I was somehow affiliated with them. If I ever receive pay to review something on this blog or receive a meal for free and then review the meal here, you will know about it. That is a promise. I paid for my meal at Revitalive, and I paid for my smoothie at Sip. I don’t know the owners at either place. End of this story.

As for the rest of the story, I can promise full disclosure and investigation of vegan eats around the country. Next time I’ll try the honesty with a side of tact and hopefully it goes down a little easier.