Reviews are opinions, and opinions can be bought, coached, or written by someone having a bad week. Photos are evidence. Somebody stood there and took a picture of the actual plate that arrived at the actual table.
It's the most underused part of a business listing.
Every listing has photos from the business and photos from customers, and they are not remotely the same thing.
The business photos were taken by a photographer on a good day, with good light, using a plate that was arranged specifically to be photographed. They tell you what the place wants to look like.
The customer photos were taken with a phone under whatever lighting exists, of food that arrived normally. They tell you what the place actually is.
Look at customer photos. Almost exclusively.
If the business photos look spectacular and the customer photos look sad, believe the customer photos.
This is the thing reviews consistently fail to convey and photos convey instantly. A beautiful $34 plate with three bites on it is a completely different experience from a $34 plate that feeds you. You'll know in one glance.
Reviews say "great atmosphere," which means nothing. Photos show you fluorescent lighting, or tables jammed together, or a patio you didn't know existed. If you're planning something — a date, a work lunch, dinner with your in-laws — thirty seconds of photos tells you more than every review combined.
Background details give away a lot. Customer photos with crowded tables behind the food suggest a place people actually go to. Empty rooms in every photo, at what look like normal hours, are worth noticing.
Sort photos by newest. If recent photos show a different interior, different plating, or a different menu than photos from two years ago, the place has changed hands or changed chefs. Any review older than that renovation is describing a restaurant that no longer exists.
Here's where it gets useful. Read the 1- and 2-star reviews first, note what people complain about, then go look for photos of exactly that.
Somebody says the burger was dry and overcooked? There are almost certainly customer photos of that burger. Look at four of them. If they all look decent, that reviewer had one bad night. If they all look grey and sad, the complaint is structural.
This works for rooms too. "Dirty" is subjective until you look at twenty photos of the dining room and form your own view.
Less useful for restaurants' cousins, but not useless.
For a salon or barber, customer photos are essentially a portfolio — you can see actual results rather than reading "she did a great job." For a mechanic or contractor, look for photos of the shop itself. An organized, clean shop is weak evidence but real evidence. For hotels, customer photos of the actual rooms are the single best defense against professionally-shot listings.
MyTopRate links every result straight to its Google listing, which is where the photos live. Once you've narrowed things down to two or three options, that's the fastest way to break the tie.
They skew positive. People photograph food that looks good and rarely photograph a disappointing sandwich. They also skew toward the photogenic — a place serving beautiful, mediocre food will look better than a place serving ugly, delicious food.
And they say nothing about service, wait times, or whether the staff were pleasant. That's what reviews are for. Use both.