Proof some people have too much time

If you want to out-snoot your know-it-all foodie patrons, take a laptop to the bar, type “Yelp dramatic” into the YouTube search field, and then snort uproariously as you watch what’s retrieved. The fedoras will fall off their heads as they realize you’re an early joiner of the next craze for the dressed-in-black set: Watching real actors read actual Yelp reviews with all the effect they’d muster for a Scorsese audition.

“I order the broiled crab cakes. [Long pause]. And they were really good,” hams the familiar TV character actor Chris Kipiniak, reading verbatim a citizen-reviewer’s post about a diner. He goes on to explain that he loved the crab cakes so much that he called the manager to give his compliments. But, he recounts with clear sadness, the manager was unreceptive.

“He seemed like he was in a rush,” Kipiniak says through obvious pain, slowly shaking his head. “I don’t think I’m going to eat there anymore [dramatic pause] because if the manager isn’t nice, what does that say about the business you’re running? And the people in it?” By that point Kipiniak is choking up.

The screen fades to black.

Upscale and trendy restaurants aren’t the only ones whose customer postings are read with thespian flourish. There are also emotive readings of what customers have said about P.F. Chang’s and Subway, not to mention pizzerias like the one featured in the reading above.