Kentucky pizzeria flooded with bad reviews after booting Barstool Sports – By Thomas Novelly (courier-journal.com) / Oct 9 2018
Barstool Sports President Dave Portnoy has a love-hate relationship with Kentucky. But a Monday night visit to a Lexington pizza restaurant may have pushed him over the edge.
Portnoy, who was in Lexington to host his fight-night series “Rough and Rowdy” and to attend the opening of the fall meet at Keeneland, attempted to record one of his online “One Bite Pizza Reviews” at Goodfellas Distillery, but was abruptly told by an employee that he could not be on the property.
“You guys got permission to shoot on my patio today?” one Goodfellas employee was recorded saying in Portnoy’s review video. “No? Cool, so I’m going to need you to make your way out this way.”
Portnoy, who said he was already furious over being given a cold slice of cheese pizza, gave the pizzeria a 0 out of 10 rating for being kicked off the property.
Barstool Sports fans, often referred to as “stoolies,” passionately tore into the pizza chain, which has locations in Cincinnati, Covington and Lexington.
A screenshot by one fan appeared to reveal that the pizza chain’s Google ranking had dropped from a 4.3 to a 2.7 after nearly 1,000 negative reviews were submitted. But on Tuesday the reviews were gone and the ranking was a 4.6.
https://twitter.com/Matt_Koz_10/status/1049640435260506113
A manager at the Lexington Goodfellas location did not immediately return the Courier Journal’s request for comment. Requests were forwarded to a corporate email.
The chain did post a status on Facebook responding to the review.
“We hate that the Pres got a cold slice and a cold welcome, and we are working on making it right,” Goodfellas wrote. “However, one review doesn’t define Goodfellas … As for the rest, sometimes you just gotta brush it off and fuhgeddaboudit.”
Portnoy has caused pizza controversy in Kentucky before.
The viral video host received flak online for his critique of The Post in September 2017, a popular pizzeria in Louisville’s Germantown neighborhood. The host claimed he had to wait more than an hour for his pizza, but the owner said otherwise.
“WELL I NEVER!,” Portnoy wrote in a blog post on Barstool Sports. “Listen you can question a lot of things about me but NEVER question my pizza review integrity. Instead of making excuses just apologize and promise to get better. This is so Lebron it hurts.”
He gave The Post a 0.2 out of 10, and a flood of negative comments swarmed the group’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
“I hate to say this because of Louisville people,” Portnoy said in his video in September 2017. “I already roasted one of their places, and they’re like, ‘Get the f— out of Louisville,’ and weren’t happy about it.”
Portnoy recently took a shot at Louisville when he was tasting pizza at Pies and Pints in Lexington.
“Kentucky, Lexington I love you,” Portnoy said. “Louisville, dump. Lexington, heaven.”
Check out our statement on Facebook. https://t.co/BrFwyYJEdn pic.twitter.com/4t4hiT2ND8
— Goodfellas Pizzeria (@GoodfellasPie) October 9, 2018
