By Rachel Pannett, The Washington Post (c) 2024
Yelp disabled comments for a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania where former president Donald Trump manned the fry station during a weekend campaign stop, after the restaurant’s Yelp page was hit by a flurry of politicized reviews.
“Went to this McDonalds to try the new chicken big Mac and was stunned to see a convicted felon operating the drive through,” a reviewer wrote.
“The fries were too salty as if someone who lost a major election had been crying over them for an hour,” quipped another.
One reviewer mocked that the server “got bronzer on my fries.”
Trump served up fries and handed out food Sunday through the drive-through window of the McDonald’s franchise in Feasterville, Pennsylvania.
The restaurant was closed to the public during the Republican presidential nominee’s visit. The motorists Trump served were all screened by Secret Service ahead of his arrival, leading Yelp to conclude the reviews were probably phony.
“This business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on the news,” an alert posted by Yelp on the review page said.
“While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events,” Yelp added.
Asked about the backlash, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in an email to The Washington Post blamed Vice President Kamala Harris, without evidence, and her supporters of seeking to “terrorize a franchisee owner of a great American establishment simply because President Trump showed up at the establishment.”
McDonald’s didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
It is not the first time Trump has been the target of negative Yelp reviews. Hundreds of one-star reviews flooded the Yelp page for the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C.in 2018.
The online trashing of the D.C. hotel and other Trump ventures began soon after The Post reported in 2018 that Trump had used a vulgar term during a discussion about immigration.
Yelp reviews have become a means for airing political views on both sides of the aisle during the election campaign.
Last month, a Wisconsin-based spice shop, Penzeys Spices, was flooded with negative reviews on its Yelp page – and calls from Trump supporters for a boycott – after a visit from Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
Not all of the reviews of the Pennsylvania McDonald’s were negative. A number of reviewers gave the McDonald’s a five-star rating, with some making oblique references to Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign.
“The best McDonalds I’ve ever been to in 47 years. The older employee was extremely nice. Make McDonalds Great Again!” one reviewer wrote, giving it a rating of five stars.
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Video: Former president Donald Trump briefly worked the fry station at a McDonald’s franchise in Feasterville, Pa., on Oct. 20 as he continues to claim, without evidence, that Vice President Kamala Harris never worked there while in college.