I’ll try just about anything once, sometimes twice if I’m not sure how my taste buds are feeling about it.  We have a lot of great food here in Santa Clarita.  By the same token, we HAD a lot of great food right here in Santa Clarita.

We had a great Vietnamese Kitchen in the Mall and it vanished.  We also had a great Thai restaurant on Seco and Copper Hill, gone!  Countless little sandwich shops and bitty bakeries gone.  Why?  Where have they gone? What happened to them?  Why didn’t you hear about them when they were here?

Yes, the economy is bad, but I don’t think that factor alone did it.  It’s a compound problem that includes traffic flow, lack of advertising budgets and sometimes just plain bad food or bad service, the list could go on and on.

Sometimes, I think it had to do with reviews or lack of reviews in our locally loved newspapers and magazines.   I’m not sure how or what you have to do to become a “food Critic” or “foodie” in this town.  Do you just show up at an event such as “Taste of the Town” with your press pass and write a nice review about whatever free food is served to you?  In some cases with our local magazines, if you pay for an advertisement you get to write your own review, and that is ok!  It is just another way to advertise.

alilbirdie.com wants to tweak the status quo a bit.  I’m going to make a few promises to my members to insure that my reviews are un-biased reviews:

1. I will eat.  (That’s an easy one, Yay for me!)
2. I will pay for every meal I review! NO FREEBIES!
3. I will never post a bad review.  (As the saying goes, “If you don’t have anything nice to say … ” The alilbirdie.com business model will never include trying to put anyone out of business … just promoting great businesses.)
4. If I don’t like what I have eaten or didn’t like the service I will give it a second try. (Because everyone deserves a second chance.)
5. I will always let the owner of a badly reviewed eatery know what our opinions are by way of a private e-mail or letter, to be helpful.  This will give them the opportunity to better his or her business.
6. I will never advertise for anyone who has not passed alilbirdie.com’s customer service standards, for any reason or any amount of money.

These standards also apply to everything I review.  You might not agree with my opinion -  you might not like everything I like -  but at the very least, I am willing to put good information out there for good businesses that still believe in the same things our birdies believe.  Customers Still Count.  alilbirdie.com will not promote any business that does not give the paying customer the respect they deserve or meet all of the alilbirdie.com customer service standards.

That being said … Where is your favorite Birdie Feeder in Santa Clarita please let me know?  I’ll do my best to fly by and give it a try.