The Alembic, a San Francisco cocktail and restaurant restaurant, was part of the first wave of companies demanding the vaccination of workers and employers against Covid-19 when the indoor dining room was restarted in June.
Co-owner Kathryn Kulczyk said the public’s reaction was swift and much of it reached Alembic’s Yelp page, the popular review site.
“People called us Nazis,” he said. “To say we supported the demon because we wanted vaccination tests.”
In early August, Yelp Inc. added features that allowed companies to list their vaccine policies on their pages, in the same way they could advertise that they deliver or accept credit cards. There are two new options: a company can indicate whether its staff is fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and whether it requires employers to provide vaccination evidence; users can filter search results based on these options.
The change has pushed Yelp — and the small businesses on its pages — into the broader debate about vaccination requirements. The San Francisco-based company has stepped up moderation to handle what it calls a “bombing review,” cases where public attention to a company results in an influx of negative feedback from users who aren’t necessarily customers.