Yelp’s servings could use a dash of candor

But is Yelp also a shakedown racket for merchants? Some restaurant owners say the San Francisco company is unusually aggressive in trying to get businesses to pay hundreds of dollars in monthly “sponsorship” fees to improve their ranking in search results and to move their most positive review to the top of the page.

They also say paying Yelp is often the only way to counter negative reviews posted by rival eateries — a common digital-era practice, business owners say, in the highly competitive restaurant industry.

“We felt like we had no choice,” Jamie Inzunza, owner of Mamma’s Brick Oven Pizza in South Pasadena, said of the $350 she pays Yelp every month. “We decided that we had to spend all this money to protect ourselves once the bad reviews started appearing.”

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