For 30 years the man behind the restaurant reviews in the Chicago Tribune has largely remained a ghost.
Beginning in 1989, Phil Vettel said he went to great lengths to maintain his anonymity, but now recognizes that effort is far more challenging to maintain in an era of social media and the digital world.
“I want restaurants to treat me like just another guy off the street,” he wrote in an op-ed for the paper. “But that’s getting harder to ensure.”
Fake reservation names, credit cards with different names and a lack of public events are no longer keeping Vettel’s true identity a secret.
“The smart operators, the big kids, have sussed me out,” he wrote. “Restaurants have gotten so sophisticated managing data and working social media (looking up reservation names to see if they correspond to real people, for instance) that maintaining anonymity is a constant battle. And my losses are mounting. This has, I fear, created an uneven playing field, giving an advantage to restaurants clever enough to recognize me and smart enough not to let it show.”
So now, he has made himself known to those out there looking for the man behind the words.
“This is not going to change the way I go about my job,” he said. “I still plan to show up unannounced, using pseudonyms for making reservations and paying the bills. My photo isn’t going to be plastered alongside every review; don’t look for me on billboards, mattress testimonials or ‘Dancing With the Stars.’”
