Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monterey's Fish House

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Monterey's Fish House

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Monterey's Fish House (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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I am unable to find any source that suggests this is more than "just another restaurant". There are 37 fish restaurants in the USA (per the category that this article was recently in) which are listed in Wikipedia. No doubt there are also some that have never made it into that category. Only 8 are in California. Where is the evidence that this restaurant is sufficiently notable to be listed? I suggest that it just isn't there. (And I have looked for it.) The article was tagged for lack of notability in December 2018 and the tag was immediately removed by the article creator - relying, it appears, on just their point of view. No discussion or additional supporting evidence was put on the talk page. There was no input from other editors - which would have been helpful. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Worth adding, perhaps, a quote from a newspaper article the mentions this restaurant "It’s not fancy. But it’s ours." Does that confirm that there is nothing special about this restaurant?[1]ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:07, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd say that being fancy (and fancy isn't a synonym with "special") or not has no bearing on notability. Many famous restaurants are not fancy. I haven't decided about this one yet but it's better sourced than most restaurants that show up at AFD (a couple of books, featured on a TV episode. It's maybe a bit more WP:BROCHURE-y than is ideal but if the sourcing meets WP:NCORP and/or WP:GNG, then it's clean up instead of deletion. There's been even some coverage from newspapers outside of CA: [2] in Lincoln Star, Nebraska, which is a bit unusual for restaurants, in my experience. Skynxnex (talk) 19:16, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

And don't forget WP:BASIC. Missvain (talk) 03:56, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2022 December 8. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 15:12, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Food and drink, Companies, and California. Skynxnex (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 15:29, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• Weak keep Guy Fieri's tv show and the award from the Californian (along with another article) and Fodor's travel listing should be enough for GNG. Oaktree b (talk) 15:49, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• Keep. The californian newspaper passes GNG.`~HelpingWorld~` ^(👽🛸) 23:32, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:29, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

• Delete Since this is a commercial organization, the appropriate guideline is WP:NORG, not just GNG. Restaurants are a difficult topic because there's an entire industry build up around reviewing restaurants, from "influencers" to travel books, TV and Michelin stars. If we apply NORG criteria, we require a minimum of two sources which may be classed as "deep or meaningful" coverage that contains in-depth information on the company and must also include "original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject". For me, it can be argued in a number of ways but lots of questions remain unsatisfactorily unresolved. For example, does a review of the restaurant (food, service, facilities) meet the criteria given that there are reviews for restaurants just about everywhere these days begging the question, what is significant anymore about a review? Does an appearance on a TV show meet the criteria? What about an award? For me based on the entirity of our notability guidelines, common or garden reviews are not significant - nor are awards by newspapers or restaurant associations which are not global in nature. I also don't see how the TV show helps to establish notability seeing as how it is entirely promotional. If it can be shown that this restaurant received a *significant* review or received a significant award, I'll revisit my !vote but I'm unable to locate anything, topic fails NORG. HighKing⁺⁺ 12:21, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting an exceptional 3rd time, to give participants the chance to react to HighKing's arguments.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 17:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

• I'd delete the current article on TNT grounds: it's well-referenced promotional material, and if the advertising (and trivial stuff; we can't seriously give the menu) is removed, there will be nothing left. But more generally, I want to support HighKing's concerns. Every half-way reasonable restaurant that ever existed will have had independent reviews in solid, probably regional newspapers at some point, and probably won an award or two. People like to go out and eat, so writing reviews about restaurants is part of a regional newspaper's job. There are also loads of awards available for catering outlets. A restaurant is much more likely to attract media attention than a newsagent, an archaeologist or a dentist. We can always find good referencing in travel guides supporting the idea that a restaurant has a nice ambience or good decor or great food; that's what travel guides exist to do. But is this referencing enough? Do we want Wikipedia to degenerate into a listing of fish-bars? I do think that restaurants and food outlets need to stand out of the crowd quite dramatically in order to merit a Wikipedia article. Perhaps a good indicator is whether there's anything to write about a restaurant apart from "is located at X and serves good food", and relaying the advertising-speak of a travel guide. Is there some exceptional coverage for a restaurant beyond what we can find for everywhere? Elemimele (talk) 20:00, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
  • There is the section WP:RESTAURANTREVIEWS at WP:NORG which provides some pointers such as discounting brief and routine reviews (including Zagat), being independent, etc, but it still falls short of resolving many of the issues surrounding restaurant notability in general. There were a few attempts in the past to write guidelines specifically for restaurants but none were adopted. For example WP:REST HighKing⁺⁺ 11:34, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
• Delete: reading the points raised above reinforces my view that this is "just another restaurant" - the sort of establishment that may be nice to eat in, but is not particularly unusual. Given that there are "155,448 Single Location Full-Service Restaurants Businesses in the US in 2022"[3], what proportion of those do Wikipedia need to list before we have an overwhelming number of articles on restaurants. And this only considers the USA – what about the rest of the world? If we look for (possibly) the most well-known rating of restaurants (the Michelin Guide), within the USA there are 176 with one star, 33 with two and 14 with three.[4] That's a total of 223, or 0.14% of all restaurants. Looking just to the Michelin Guide is probably an over-restriction, but I think this is a starting point: consider which establishments are undoubtedly notable. Then we need to find another mark of notability that does not allow huge numbers to make the grade. What we particularly want to avoid is restaurants that are favourites of editors ending up here, justified by reviews that can be found for most places, whilst others that do not have a convenient Wikipedia editor amongst its clientele get ignored. (This tendency would be just the result of normal human nature - please do not infer any more out of this point.) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 17:33, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, I think that WP:NOTGUIDE has some relevance here - certainly when considering what proportion of restaurants should be the subject of a Wikipedia article. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:12, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.