Restaurant reviews in New York: benchmarks from 126 businesses

What this is. We read the most recent 120 Google reviews of 126 independent restaurants in New York, 15,069 reviews in total, and report the aggregate numbers here. No individual business is named; every figure is an average across the group.

Key numbers for New York

Businesses analysed 126
Average Google rating 4.35 ★
Share of businesses at 4.5 ★ or above 25%
Owner response rate 27.3%
Unanswered negative reviews per business 17.5

What customers in New York complain about most

The single biggest complaint theme in each report, counted across the sample.

Complaint theme Businesses where it ranks first
Service Speed & Wait Times 3
Inconsistent Food Quality 3
Order Accuracy & Missing Items 3
Slow, Inattentive Service 2
Inconsistent Seasoning & Blandness 2

How to read this

An owner response rate of 27.3% means that roughly 27 out of 100 reviews get a public reply. Unanswered negatives are the cheapest thing to fix: replies are public and are read by the next person deciding where to go.

Method

  • Source: public Google reviews, most recent 120 per business.
  • Rating is the mean of the per business average.
  • Response rate is the share of reviews with a published owner reply.
  • Unanswered negatives counts reviews of three stars or fewer without a reply.
  • Reports that failed automated quality checks are excluded.
  • Data collected July to October 2026.

Cite this data

These figures are free to reuse in articles, reports and presentations with attribution and a link to this page.

Suggested citation:
Get Kandid (2026). Restaurant reviews in New York: benchmarks from 126 businesses. Retrieved October 7, 2026, from https://get-kandid.com/review-benchmarks-restaurant-new-york/

One line you can quote: “Restaurants in New York reply to only 27.3% of their Google reviews and leave 17.5 negative reviews per business unanswered, according to a Get Kandid analysis of 126 businesses.”

Journalists and researchers: we can provide the underlying aggregate tables, a city comparison or a custom cut by segment on request. Write to hello@get-kandid.com.

See the national benchmarks across all cities, or request a free report for your own business.