I’m reviewing YOU, Mark and Jeff!

Review The Reviewer: Mark and Jeff from Fort Lauderdale Today and Foodie Frog.

I have been reading the blog http://ftltoday.com for maybe two years. I follow them on Twitter and they post a lot of reviews and I end up checking them out. According to their websites, both blogs are owned by two dudes Mark and Jeff. This was taken from their site:

Mark started our food blog journey when in 2007 he created his South Florida website FTLToday.com. In 2015, his website was ranked by Zomato as being the Number One Foodie in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. He still wears all the daily hats here at FoodieFrog from writing, photography and especially finding any excuse to review a new local restaurant or resort. An exciting bean counter by trade, Mark has previous experience in the hospitality industry.

Jeff is the other half of Team Foodie Frog. A Floridian born & raised and University of Florida graduate, he spends his days as an insurance agent (yawn). The rest of the time, he says he’s our webmaster, but we don’t know exactly what he does. His previous experience includes advertising sales for Creative Loafing Newspaper (love that name).

What peaked my interest with these two guys was the fact that Zomato rated http://ftltoday.com #1 foodie in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale. Now Zomato bought out Urbanspoon approximately two years ago. I first started writing on Urbanspoon back in 2008 and then switched to Yelp. Needless to say I’m familiar with Zomato. Being recognized by Zomato is pretty impressive. Like any corporate giant you have to jump thru a lot of hoops i.e. taking pictures, writing reviews, and adding businesses to achieve a high status. So kudos to them.

Now their bios say a lot about nothing. What I mean is, it just goes to show you anyone can be a food writer. As long as you have money, like to eat out, and love taking pictures this is a job for you. Neither one of these guys (I don’t know them) really have any background in the food industry. Mark’s bio says he has previous experience in the hospitality industry. WTF does that mean? Did you work in a Hotel, Restaurant or what? When I see a vague statement like that my bull$hit radar goes up.

Like I said, I follow http://ftltoday.com on Twitter. Religiously, they post reviews all the time. I write and this $hit isn’t easy so the amount of reviews they are pumping out is crazy. Yes I know there are two of them but still. When I saw they started a “sister” blog called http://foodiefrog.com I got a little confused. Then it dawned on me that these dudes have probably relocated to the Tampa Area. The reason why I say that is because all the reviews tweeted out under Ft. Lauderdale Today are old. The last local review they did was in July 2015. When I clicked on their “sister” blog all the reviews are up to date. Also this site blows the Ft. Lauderdale Today one away. You can see where Jeff’s advertising background comes in handy. They have more ads on their site than a race car in NASCAR. I had to laugh when I saw the blood pressure banner ad on top of this blog. It looks like the guy is missing his rib cage and you can see the imprint of his heart thru his skin. WTF is that? Not sure how much they are paying for that but that pic and food reviews don’t mix…..just saying. With that said, unless they are living part time up north and plan on coming back to South Florida I don’t see http://ftltoday.com being relevant anymore.

Reviews

Their reviews are good but not great. They stick to a basic format, App, Main Course, and occasional drink, and then post a picture of the receipt. Kinda vanilla to me, but I’m odd when I write LOL. They will hit a home run every now and then like the review on Rebel House. Excellent review…well written, and I even posted a comment which wasn’t approved and listed. Not sure why but I didn’t like that. I like their pictures and that is where they excel. The new website is damn good and easy to navigate thru. They critique different products like the bacon cooker for the microwave. Not sure if they get paid for reviewing these products but I found those reviews entertaining.

Verdict

I know it looks like I beat the $hit out of these guys. All I can say is that I read their stuff and some reviews I like and some I don’t. Would I go to a place that they recommended? Maybe. Are they at the level of a Marqus? Hell no. Now, if I owned a restaurant or business would I be concerned about them writing a bad review? Yes. Why? Because these dudes know how to advertise and get their message out. Plus, I think they write fair reviews too. 3 Beers. Stay Hungry!

Four beers = Outstanding
Three beers = Good
Two beers = OK
One beer = Needs work
Zero beers= Sucks (No beer is never a good thing.)