review-bridge

My parents run a noodle restaurant. They don't read English, so in fifteen years they have never read a single one of their own Google Maps reviews. The 1-star reviews sit there unanswered — and every restaurateur knows that replying to reviews is what brings new customers in.

review-bridge is their review secretary. It watches Google Maps for them and runs a loop they can actually use:

盯着 → 汇总 → 预警 → 代笔回复 — watch, brief, alert, ghostwrite.

1. 📊 中文简报 (brief) — every morning, a Chinese briefing: average rating, rating trend, which dishes customers praise most, what they complain about most. Google Translate can translate a review. It cannot do this.
2. 🚨 差评预警 (alert) — 1–2 star reviews get flagged immediately with urgency. My parents never open Google Maps; the tool watches it for them.
3. ✍️ 代笔回复 (ghostwrite) — for each flagged review, a polite, natural English reply draft they can post publicly, plus a Chinese explanation of what the reply says and why. This is the real unlock: non-English-speaking owners responding to customers in fluent English.

Translation happens underneath, as plumbing. It is never presented as the product.

Why open AI matters here

• Runs offline on the family laptop — no internet needed in a restaurant backroom.
• Customer feedback never leaves the laptop — no review data sent to a third-party AI API.
• Zero cost — a small family business shouldn't pay a SaaS subscription to read its own reviews.
• The family controls it — the whole UI is in Simplified Chinese, tuned for the owners, not for a generic dashboard.

The AI core is Gemma 3 running locally via Ollama. Review fetching uses SerpApi's Google Maps Reviews API (free tier: 100 searches/month — plenty for one restaurant).

Built for the Hacktoberfest 2026 Weekend Challenge (Build for a Friend). Entered prize categories: Best Use of Gemma ($200), Best Use of SerpApi ($100).

Quickstart (Windows laptop)

# 1. Install Ollama from https://ollama.com, then:
ollama pull gemma3:4b

# 2. Free SerpApi key from https://serpapi.com (no credit card), then:
setx SERPAPI_KEY "your-key-here"

# 3. Install and run:
pip install review-bridge
review-bridge serve --query "Best Noodle House Rosemead"
# open http://localhost:8080 on your phone (same Wi-Fi)

No SerpApi key? Paste mode needs nothing:

review-bridge paste < reviews.txt     # blocks separated by ---
review-bridge serve --mock            # demo with sample data, no network/AI

Paste format — blocks separated by a --- line:

author: Jane D.
rating: 2
date: 2026-09-20
The noodles were cold and we waited 40 minutes...
---
author: Bob
rating: 5
Best beef noodle soup ever!

CLI

review-bridge fetch --query "Restaurant Name"   # pull + print Chinese briefing
review-bridge fetch --place-id <serpapi_id>     # skip the name lookup
review-bridge paste [--file reviews.txt]        # no API key needed
review-bridge serve [--port 8080]               # Chinese web UI
review-bridge <cmd> --mock                      # canned data, no network/AI

Tests

python -m pytest tests/ -q    # 26 tests, stdlib only

Honest limitations

• The SerpApi free tier caps at 100 searches/month; a busy restaurant chain would outgrow it.
• Review-reply drafts are AI-generated — the owners should skim the Chinese explanation before posting.
• Star ratings on aggregator mirrors are sometimes sub-ratings; the tool trusts what the API returns.
• The local model needs ~4GB RAM free; a very old laptop will be slow (the --mock demo still works).
• This watches Google Maps reviews only — Yelp/DoorDash are separate worlds.