I generally find Yelp to be a helpful resource when researching new places to eat or, say, finding a decent dry cleaner. But the user-generated reviews can also be unhelpful, irrelevant... and sometimes racist. And that's who this sushi restaurant was addressing when they wrote this blog post. The racists.
Mashiko, a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar in West Seattle, rates four stars in Yelp, which is perfectly respectable. But they've also apparently received reviews andcomments calling out a lack of Japanese staff (not true) at this Japanese restaurant, including, most notably, a white woman sushi chef. Her name is Mariah Kmitta. Chef/owner Hajime Sato is progressive like that.
Still, the unfounded criticism bugged them enough that Mashiko composed An Open Letter to Bigot Diners on the restaurant's blog. Take that, haters and fools. Here's an excerpt:
