Palm Springs for Gay Men: Restaurant Evaluation Criteria
We want to be very precise when we rate the restaurants. You should be able to compare one establishment directly to another one to see which one is best. It is bad enough the we have to rely on subjective judgment; at least our judgment is tempered by some very precise guidelines. Or so we hope.
| Updated 1/31/06 |
In the table below you can see how we determine the rating given to each restaurant. Please keep in mind that the evaluation of the meal is not determined by a survey or even by a committee; the ratings are based only on our own observations, usually from one single meal. On the other hand we can afford to be fair: since we carry no advertising, we are not influenced by the generosity of the restaurateurs.
A word about why we don't like to go back and rerate a restaurant. It would be unfair. We would tend to go back only to restaurants that are good (who wants to go back to a dog?), and that means that good restaurants would run a risk to be downgraded while the bad ones would never get the chance to climb in the ratings. The one-impression rule is ultimately fair. A restaurant should never have "bad" days.
How to we see a gay dining experience? It is really a combination of four components: food quality, ambience, service, and gay presence. We try, as far as is humanly possible, to measure each of these components separately, not letting, say, bad service get in the way of giving a high rating for a great ambience.
Zero to 4 rating points are given for food quality and ambience and zero to 3 for service and gay presence. We judged the latter two as somewhat less important than the others. Here is the approximate meaning of each of these individual rating points:
| Category | No points | 1 point | 2 points | 3 points | 4 points |
| Food Quality (a) | Yucky food | Plain, unremarkable diner food | Tasty, pleasant food | Inventive, enjoyable food | Fabulous food |
| Ambience (b) | Plain and dull | Everything required but no more | Pleasant enough | Quite enjoyable, nice amenities | Very comfortable and inviting |
| Service (c) | No attention at all (or it's a buffet or cafeteria) | Typical diner service | Good, pleasant service | Attentive, superb service | |
| Gay Presence | A feeling of hostility | Hardly any gay guests | At least 1/3 of the guests are gay | Almost entirely gay | |
| a) For unusually small portions the Food Quality rating is reduced by one point. b) If they trap you into valet parking the Ambience rating sinks one point. c) Any sort of cheating (food, bill, ...) deserves a zero Service rating. | |||||
The "Total Rating" column in the list represents what you GET from the restaurant. It is the total of the four individual ratings and is expressed as a number from zero to 14. That number is all you need to know -- if money is of no concern to you. But of course it is. And therefore we have added another column to the list, where you will find something unusual: if you get your money's worth or not.
The money you pay for the meal is what you GIVE to the restaurant. If what you get and what you give are equal, then you are getting your money's worth. That's what is shown in the "Worth Your Money?" column in the list. If there is a plus value, you get more than you give (= good for you). If there is a minus value, you get less than you give (= good for the restaurant?).
To find that value, the money you pay must first be converted to a number that relates to the Total Rating, and here is how we calculate that value.
To determine the price charged for a meal we make the following assumptions: (1) Brunch and lunch consists of an entree, a non-alcohol beverage, and coffee. (2) Dinner and buffet consists of a soup or salad, an entree, a non-alcohol beverage, a dessert, and coffee.
The price for each of these items are added together -- of course, if an item is included in a meal package nothing is added. The price for an entree or a dessert is determined as the average of all entrees or desserts on the menu. However, if the main focus of the menu is on entrees and they also have some burgers etc to offer, the latter are disregarded. Some restaurants may not offer some things (try to get coffee in a Chinese restaurant!) and to make the valuation fair we must make an estimate of what it would have cost if .. oh yeah!
25% of the total price is then added for tax and tip, and the resulting amount is the price for the meal. In current dollars, inflated as they may be. To be fair to the restaurants visited today when compared to the ones visited years ago we have to normalize the meal price to its corresponding amount back in 1998, using the appropriate CPI numbers (1998: 163.0, 1999: 166.6, 2000: 172.2, 2001: 177.1, 2002: 179.9, 2003: 184.0, 2004: 188.9, 2005: 195.3, 2006 (estimate): 202.0). When this is done, we convert the resulting amount to price level points, which will be deducted from the Total Rating points we discussed earlier.
At lunch (or brunch) each two dollars above $4.00 converts to one price level point. Dinner (or a buffet) is a more comprehensive meal, and there each three dollars above $6.00 converts to one price level point. We show you first the conversion formulas and then the table that is obtained from the formulas.
Formula for lunch and brunch price level points:
| (Price for the meal - $4) / 2 |
Formula for dinner and buffet price level points:
| (Price for the meal - $6) / 3 |
Built on these two formulas, the table below shows the price level points corresponding to any dollar amount, for lunch or brunch, and for dinner or buffet. For amounts higher than $47 you have to use your own slide rule.
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The price level points deducted from the rating points constitutes the "Worth Your Money?" rating. The plus values are the good deals, the higher the better (but it can still be an expensive meal!).
Of course the formulas can be challenged. A terrible dinner is assumed to be worth 6 dollars, but who says that that is so? We suggest that you use the list as a general guide -- you may not concur with it in detail but still find it useful. Also, things (and prices) may change, and we ask you to tell us about it. And, of course, please drop us a line with tips about restaurants not in the list -- good or bad -- so we can go there and then add them to the list.
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