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“There are plenty of review sites,” says Glenn Mulno, the group’s founder and lead moderator. ‘Go to Google. Go to Yelp. That’s not what this is for.”
Mulno, who works in software development, started the group in 2020 as a way to support the city’s dining establishments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurateurs faced a dangerous future, and Mulno sensed that the consequences of complaints online – anonymous and without context or nuance – could be fatal. Early on, he removed “hundreds” of negative comments from the feed. “The mission of the page is to promote and support the restaurants,” he says. “You can’t do that if you bash or criticize them.”
But it didn’t take long for the group’s members, which now number 6,600, to catch on, in part because Mulno is an enthusiastic adherent to his own community guidelines. “Okay – I had to try that special fried oyster burger from Cappella Restaurant tonight,” reads one of his typical messages. “All I could say was: WOW!!! it was just as wonderful as I had dreamed. Don’t miss this phenomenal special before it ends!”
Overall, Needham’s food scene deserves more than just compliments. It’s probably of similar quality to those in a range of other Boston suburbs and neighborhoods. In addition to a few really top restaurants, there are plenty of solid restaurants with children’s menus and plenty of serviceable pizza.
But the raves on Needham Restaurants’ Facebook feed are genuine; any complaints are simply elsewhere.
And the overall result is by far the most joyful, soul-affirming part of my Internet diet.
You may be wondering: what’s the point of a relentlessly cheerful Facebook page? Doesn’t it get tiring? How can you trust what you read? Is it useful at all?
Honest questions.
But no, I don’t get tired of it. Probably because one outpost of pure positivity isn’t nearly enough to counterbalance the anger and negativity that tends to dominate on social media.
The statistics support the idea that negativity is contagious: A paper published in September by researchers at the University of Cambridge, following previous peer-reviewed findings, showed that negative news articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter more often than positive ones. And negative language generally makes us all feel quite grumpy.
There’s zero chance I’ll come across content from Needham Restaurants that will put me in a bad mood. For example, I won’t get drawn into an endless debate about whether or not a lunch spot is part of a vast Zionist conspiracy, as I did recently under a news story about that lunch spot opening a sister restaurant in Boston.
Instead I see user photos of local dishes and essential logistical information: a warning about the one week a year that my family’s favorite pizzeria (Needham House of Pizza) closes for the summer holidays or on weekends when Hazel’s bakery isn’t open is. not taking cupcake orders. Restaurants can post messages in the group once a day with, for example, adjusted opening hours, holidays and special offers. So yes, it is useful.
I get micro-obituaries from restaurants that have gone under, like when a 40-year-old sandwich shop closed last summer (“More sad news. 2 more weeks for Mighty Subs”) or when we lost our Bertucci’s location last February . “While we are sad, we have many other great options for family and Italian dinners,” Mulno wrote.
Perhaps most importantly, I’m reminded that there are real people behind the piles of pasta plates, brightly colored cocktails and slices of chocolate cake celebrated on the feed.
“Enjoyed my first breakfast at Fresco today!” Mulno posted in December 2022, when a local restaurant reopened after a few months of renovations. “The food was of the usual delicious quality. Be patient while they get going again. While we didn’t have any problems, I suspect this might be the case if they come back into control. You can never go wrong with kindness and patience!”
Needham Restaurants has recently grown into both an in-person and virtual booster club. In September, Mulno invited me to dinner at Sweet Basil with 10 other locals who met through the Facebook group. Recruited by Mulno, they all act as ‘ambassadors’ for their favorite local spots, regularly appearing on the feed and helping Mulno stay up to date with operational news.
“It’s kind of an ‘Adopt-a-Highway’ program,” says Haril Pandya, a lifelong city resident and ambassador for Blue on Highland — a family-friendly New American restaurant with a full bar and big-screen TVs — and Ray’s New Garden, a Chinese restaurant with late hours and live music. Maria Rosa, who was sitting on my right, joined the group as a cheerleader for Spiga, the Italian restaurant near the highway exit.
Rosa says the online group has influenced the way they approach dining in the real world. She recently had an entree that looked nothing like the photo the restaurant used to promote the dish on its website. Instead of complaining about it, she approached management directly. They changed the photo.
“There are plenty of review sites,” says Mulno. “Go to Google. Go to Yelp. That’s not what this is for.”
Lane Turner/Globe Staff
Now the ambassadors meet for dinner about once a month (only in Needham, of course); each person contributes a bottle of wine and photos of their meals to post on the group page. “Semi-pro tip: horizontally, not from above,” says Mulno, demonstrating the best angles for shots of my octopus linguine.
Thanks to these meetings, the group members became real friends and even went to each other’s homes for dinner. They have and share restaurant opinions that are not always 100 percent positive. But on the Facebook page, the overarching message is the feeling that everyone involved is on the same team and pursuing the same goal: going out for a nice meal.
“I’ve lived here for 26 years,” says Mulno. “When I moved here, there were only a few sit-down restaurants. It took the city a long time to build up to where it is today. So when the pandemic started, I was like, “My God!” I didn’t want the pizza places to be the only places left.”
“As good as the pizzerias are,” he qualifies.
Schuyler Velasco is a writer living in Needham.