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Have you considered writing for San Diego Restaurants.com?

Do you have your finger on the pulse of the San Diego dining scene? Do your friends constantly come to you for dining recommendations? Do you find yourself reminiscing about a meal days after you've dined? Do you like to write almost as much as you like to dine out? If you answered yes to all of these questions, we have an opportunity for you.

Here at San Diego Restaurants.com, we're always looking for new writers to review restaurants and submit articles on topics related to the fine dining scene. If you are passionate, honest, and knowledgeable about food, wine, and fine dining, you might be the perfect writer to join our growing team. If the thought of sharing your dining experiences and your food expertise with thousands of readers looking for dining advice sounds intriguing, please read on.

You may apply directly through this website. You will be asked to submit an application as well as to submit a writing sample in one of two ways. You may elect to visit a restaurant and complete a sample restaurant review according to our Review Guidelines, or you may choose to select an article topic and submit a sample article for our consideration. Please note that restaurant reviews involve selecting a restaurant from our list, arranging to visit the restaurant on your own time and dining at your own expense—writers who are not interested in this process should not apply.

 

Who can be a writer?

To write for San Diego Restaurants.com you must meet the following criteria:

• be at least 21 years of age
• have your own reliable transportation (for restaurant reviews)
• have no dietary restrictions or aversions to foods, ingredients or cuisines (for restaurant reviews)
• have a strong understanding of food and wine
• be able to accurately and effectively describe tastes, textures, color, mood, and ingredients, in an entertaining and informative way
• be comfortable interviewing chefs or other members of the restaurant staff when asked
• be able to accurately write up recipes provided by chefs, which may involve converting amounts or altering cooking techniques so that they may be prepared in a home kitchen.

Important: The responsibility of writing for our website includes eating and writing about a variety of dishes and ingredients, across a broad range of cuisines. We are unable to consider candidates who have an aversion to any foods or who cannot or will not eat certain ingredients, foods prepared a certain way, or dishes of a specific cuisine. We respectfully ask that you do not apply to write restaurant reviews if you are not willing to eat any dish at any restaurant.

 

Where to begin

There is a two-step application process for new writers. First, we ask you to complete a brief questionnaire to provide us with information about yourself and to determine if you meet our criteria for writers. Completing this questionnaire will provide you with an account through our online Writer's Center. Second, we ask you to write and submit a sample restaurant review or article according to our review guidelines (which you will be able to view after you complete step one). Once you log in to your account, you will be able to select a restaurant to review from our list of available restaurants or an article topic from our list of articles. You will then have two weeks to prepare and submit the restaurant review, or one week to prepare and submit your article. We will evaluate your writing sample to determine your knowledge of food and wine, your writing ability, and your ability to follow our guidelines. If we approve you as a writer you may immediately begin taking paid assignments.

If you are interested in writing for us, please follow the link to our Sign Up Questionnaire at the bottom of this page.

 

What if I have never published before?

That should not stop you! Being published is not a requirement to write for our website, nor is it necessarily an advantage. We evaluate all potential writers, published and unpublished, on the first assignment they write for our website, not on previously published material. We encourage unpublished writers to apply.

 

How it works

Everything happens through our online Writer's Center. All writers are provided with a username and password to log in to our Writer's Center, where they are able to manage their account, view and change their profile, and select and submit assignments. The first time you log in to the Writer's Center, you should read our Guidelines, Frequently Asked Questions, and information about our Assignments, so that you understand how our assignments work. (You will not be able to view these pages without first logging in.) After that you will be asked to agree to our Terms and Conditions, and you may select your first assignment.

All of our restaurant review assignments require writers to visit a specific restaurant and to write a restaurant review based on their dining experience. These assignments also require writers to write a separate one-paragraph short review highlighting the restaurant's cuisine, ambiance, and location, and to upload the dinner menu from the restaurant. Some assignments have additional requirements, and writers may be asked to write a chef profile, convey a chef's signature recipe, upload the wines by the glass, or submit a photograph of a chef or photograph of the restaurant. To ensure consistency across our website, we provide detailed Guidelines about the format and content of each component. Since our writers select their own assignments, they are able to decide whether to go on assignments with these optional components or to just select assignments that require the basics: two reviews and a menu.

All of our article assignments require the submission of a 250-1250 word piece on a topic related to the restaurant industry, including food, wine, beer, spirits, nightlife, and/or people in the industry.Sample articles and additional information can be found in our Article Guidelines.

 

What we are looking for in a Restaurant Review

The restaurant review is the main focus of each restaurant profile on our website. These reviews aim to provide our readers with a comprehensive overview of a dining experience at each restaurant. Each review should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words and contain the following information:

• the neighborhood and location of the restaurant
• a brief account of the restaurant's history
• any interesting facts or details about the owners/chef
• a detailed description of the atmosphere, mood, and level of formality
• information about seating options including different dining spaces, outdoor seating, and private rooms
• an overview of the wine list, specialty drinks, and bar offerings
• a vivid description of at least five varied dishes from at least three courses, with special mention of ingredients, presentation, taste, texture, and overall satisfaction

When you login to your account you will find additional style guidelines for every component of the restaurant review package. All reviews must adhere to these guidelines to be accepted for publication.

 

What we expect of our writers

We expect our writers to be timely, professional, and consistent. When you select a restaurant to review, you are committing to an assignment, and we expect you to follow through by providing us with a completed assignment that meets our expectations on or before your deadline.

When visiting a restaurant, we expect all writers to be professional and courteous. We expect that our writers will not disrupt the restaurant for the sake of their assignment, and that they will not take advantage of the situation or act unprofessionally.

We have a strict policy regarding late or incomplete assignments. If you commit to an assignment and do not come through, we feel you are not only letting us down, you are inconveniencing other writers who could have selected that assignment. We allow a 48-hour grace period to cancel any assignment; otherwise we expect a completed restaurant review within two weeks and a completed article within one week of selecting the assignment. We take this very seriously. If your assignment is late, we will release the restaurant to another writer, and will no longer accept your work. The first time a writer submits an assignment late or incomplete, we will suspend their account for 30 days; the second time this occurs we will deactivate their account.

 

How we compensate our writers

Pay rates for articles are set based on article length and writer level, and range between $5 and $40. Writers will be provided with the assignment fee prior to committing to an assignment. Fees are paid upon acceptance, following any edits requested by our staff.

Pay rates for restaurant reviews are set based on assignment category. There are four categories of restaurant review assignments on our website. We pay for assignments in three out of the four categories, upon acceptance of a complete assignment and after the writer completes any edits requested by our staff.

Standard Restaurant Assignments

Many restaurant assignments fall into our Standard Assignments category. These assignments are open to all writers and generally pay up to $50.

Featured Restaurant Assignments

Open to all writers who have at least silver level status and generally pay between $50 and $100

Premium Restaurant Assignments

Open to all writers who have at least gold level status, and generally pay between $100 and $200.

Invited Restaurant Assignments

May not be selected by a writer; rather writers are contacted by our editors and asked to review a specific restaurant. The fee for Invited Assignments is negotiated prior to a writer accepting an assignment. Invited Assignments can be assigned in several ways, including:

• A restaurant can request a specific writer to review their restaurant
• Our staff can hire a writer to review a specific restaurant
• If a writer suggests a restaurant not listed under our other assignment categories, AND if that restaurant decides to be listed on our website, we will send that writer on an Invited Assignment to review the restaurant

Writers on Invited Assignments will not be required to pay for their meal. Writers who complete an Invited Assignment will automatically be granted Gold Level status if they have not already reached this level.

 

Writer Profile Page

All writers are able to create and maintain a profile and post a biographical statement through their writer's account. Links to these profiles, along with a list of the articles and restaurant reviews that each writer has published, are featured on Our Writers page. To increase visibility, a writer's display name appears in the byline of each published piece, functioning as a link to the writer's profile page. Writers may elect to add their contact information to this profile page, so that interested readers may contact them about future writing assignments.

 

Writer Access Levels

All writers are assigned an access level based on the number and type of reviews and/or articles they have published. When you are first approved as a writer, your status is automatically set at the Bronze level. Your status will increase as you publish more and more reviews. Our access levels are as follows:

• Bronze
  Criteria: Writers with no published articles or restaurant reviews
  Benefits: May select only from standard restaurant assignments. May only take on one assignment at a time.
• Silver
  Criteria: Writers with at least one published restaurant review or ten or more published articles
  Benefits: May select from standard or featured restaurant assignments. May take on up to two assignments simultaneously.
• Gold
  Criteria: Writers with three or more published restaurant reviews, one or more published invited assignments, or 30 or more published articles
  Benefits: May select from standard, featured, or premium restaurant assignments; will be granted priority access to new featured restaurant assignments; may be considered for invited assignments; may take on up to three assignments simultaneously.
• Platinum
  Criteria: Writers with ten or more published restaurant reviews or 100 or more published articles
  Benefits: May select standard, featured, or premium restaurant assignments; will be granted priority access to new featured restaurant assignments; may be considered for invited assignments; may be considered for editorial responsibilities; no restrictions on number of assignments taken on simultaneously.

 

Sign Up!

Are you ready to review your first restaurant or write your first article? Go to our Sign Up page and complete our short questionnaire. Its that easy!

 

Contact:

Address

Restaurant Agent, Inc.
835 5th Avenue Suite 308
San Diego CA 92101

Phone:

1-866-368-3773

Fax:

619.239.5071

General Info:

info@restaurantagent.com

Editor:

editor@restaurantagent.com