Sink or Float?

Ebert and Roeper of the bathroom world use Web site to show which public restrooms pass the cleanliness exam

By Richard Chin, KRT Campus

It’s lunchtime, and we’re crowded into the men’s bathroom at Fhima’s restaurant in downtown St. Paul, Minn., with Jon and Ami Thompson. It’s spotless, the Thompsons note approvingly.

The actual toilet is housed in a separate little room with a real door, they point out. A nice touch for the privacy-minded. They praise the rectangular mirrors over the sinks that tilt forward to give an expansive view of the room.

They declare that the round swiveling vanity mirrors installed next to the sinks are “very metrosexual.” They try the hand soap, count the garbage cans, ponder whether the lighting is flattering and snap some photographs.

Ami ducks out to check the women’s room, returning to report that while there’s hairspray and lotion there, it lacks the orange-red panel of light running along a wall of the men’s room.

“ We have some gender inequity,” she frowns. “For me, that’s a big no-no.”

It’s not a health inspection or a restaurant review. It’s a bathroom review.

The Thompsons are creators of www.restroomratings.com, a Web site devoted to publishing evaluations of public toilets.

The Minneapolis couple said their quest to promote better bathrooms and inform fellow consumers of good places to go started about 3 1/2 years ago.

“ I was complaining on a car trip how you never know what the bathroom will be like,” Ami Thompson said.

At your typical highway junction pit stop, there might be four or five gas station or fast-food restaurant options, she said. It’s a crapshoot trying to guess which has a nice, clean bathroom.

Jon’s answer was to create the Web site as a surprise Christmas 2000 present for his wife. He initially had ratings of five bathrooms. Now, there are about 75 online reviews.

The bulk of the reviews are done at restaurants, ranging from the fancy schmancy (“Gratuitously large stalls appear as a tribute to the dining atmosphere which seems open and airy without feeling empty and lonely.” —Pazzaluna) to fast-food joints (“I marveled at the sturdy and satisfying door lock.” —Taco Bell).

But you’ll also find evaluations of the powder rooms of gas stations, the trough urinals in sports stadiums and the WCs in theaters, museums, office buildings, hospitals, libraries, malls and tourist attractions.

They invite others to submit reviews but so far haven’t gotten many. So the Thompsons have done the vast majority of the ratings themselves. They are the head inspectors, you might say.

Besides a written description and usually a photograph, each bathroom review also features a score ranging from 1 (really bad can) to 10 (a great lavatory).

As you might suspect, cleanliness is important.

“ Having a (piece of excrement sitting on the toilet rim) is probably not a good idea if your restroom is going to be reviewed that day,” said Jon of a Holiday gas station bathroom in St. Paul that rated a 2.

“ Excrement should be in the toilet,” Ami agrees.

But cleanliness isn’t everything. The Thompsons also like to see the unique, the aesthetically pleasing, something that elevates the privy experience.

A Quizno’s in St. Paul, for example, got an 8 because of framed zebra and lion artwork, a light switch cover with a rooster on it and an 18-inch-tall pedestal in the shape of a monkey.

Compare that with Sakura in St. Paul, which got only a 6 for being a “brazenly bland chamber” that didn’t reflect the “wonderful decor” in the rest of the restaurant.

“ If you have just a clean, boring bathroom, you won’t get a very high score,” said Ami, 23.

But a somewhat messy bathroom might rank well if it distinguishes itself in some other way, like being interesting or well integrated with the theme of the restaurant.

“ It’s possible. It depends on what kind of mood we’re in,” said Jon, 25.

Pretty much every aspect of public latrine design is fair game for commentary: Size, color scheme, lighting and fixtures, vending machines, noise, soap, toilet paper quality, odor, graffiti, visible presence of plungers or cleaning supplies.

Restroom Ratings has a surprisingly high Google ranking. Search for “Birchwood Cafe,” for example, and the Web site’s bathroom review of the Minneapolis restaurant is the fourth listing.

So far, the Thompsons, who own a graphic design business, don’t think their Web site is swaying diners’ decisions on which restaurants to patronize.

“ I think people use it for entertainment more than anything else,” Ami said. Although, “I think if a restaurant has a super-cool restroom, that would be an attraction.”