No purchase escapes his critic’s eye

CHICAGO —  The world has plenty of critics: film critics, restaurant critics, music critics. Kevin Elliott -- a 27-year-old Chicago waiter and bookstore worker -- outdoes them all. He is a critic of everything.

Taxi rides across town. Four loads of laundry at Spin Cycle. The card he bought for his grandmother’s birthday. He scribbles opinions about them all, posting reviews seven days a week, nearly 365 days a year, on his website, consumatron.com.

A head of lettuce. Six-packs of Old Style beer. Soft Choice toilet paper. Such are the mundane purchases of modern man. But to Elliott, thousands of receipts constitute a mosaic of life.

There are limits, of course.

“I don’t review rent and utilities,” he says over lunch at Earwax Cafe in suburban Wicker Park (later rated 4.25 out of 5), explaining that he wants to keep some financial details private.

Earnest and introspective with shaggy blond hair and small wire-rim glasses, Elliott says he’s not out to change the world. He just wants to observe it and give everything a score from 1 to 5.

“I think it’s interesting to examine the everyday things in life,” he said. “I don’t want to get too preachy or deep.”

The result is a consumer diary of sorts -- Zagat, MySpace and Consumer Reports rolled into one -- all produced by the irreverent and energetic Elliott, a film school dropout from Wisconsin.

Elliott says the site gets about 100 hits a day. His publicity campaign has consisted of riding a green bicycle around the city and leaving piles of small buttons with the website address and logo in coffee shops.

He writes reviews sitting on the sofa in his apartment. He hopes the venture will lead to a paid writing job. “Writing has always been my dream,” he said.

So he knocks out his reviews:

* Camel Lights cigarettes (rating: 2)

* 12 gallons of gasoline (rating: .75)

* Hanes premium socks (rating: 4)

The idea for the site came during a slow shift at the Artists Cafe in Chicago, where Elliott waits tables. He and another waiter, Josh Benedict, 25, were talking about how much stuff they buy, Elliott recalled.

Although there were many websites with reviews of big purchases, the two couldn’t think of any place to find reviews of small, everyday things.

“Like what someone thought of their toothbrush,” Benedict said.

Elliott sketched out a logo: an upraised fist clutching a wad of burning cash.

“It was a joke at first,” Elliott said. But within days, he was saving receipts and dashing off opinions. In a small black notebook, he recorded every dime spent.

“I started doing it, and I realized it was funny,” Elliott said. “It said a lot about my personal habits, and it made me think, ‘Why am I buying all this junk?’ ”

The son of a computer programmer, Elliott had taken a Web design class and knew how to set up an Internet site. Within weeks, he had established consumatron.com.

His first posting -- a review of a tuna salad sandwich from 7-Eleven -- appeared Oct. 3, 2005. “The crack team of scientists at 7-Eleven laboratories struck sandwich-salad gold with their decision to add celery bits and pickle to the mix, which gives the sandwich a little bit of a zing,” he wrote. He rated the sandwich 3.75.

He bought a digital camera (rating: 4.75) and added photos. He carried the camera everywhere, taking pictures of his meals in restaurants, each item he bought in the grocery store, the beer he bought in bars and even a hotel room he rented on vacation at Wisconsin Dells.

He has become an Everyman critic, a connoisseur of canned foods and a fast-food aficionado. Unlike professional critics, Elliott goes only to the places he likes, buys what he can afford and eats what he wants. His tastes run toward takeout pizza, mom-and-pop diners and Chinese food.

Although he observes a weekly “Buy Nothing Day,” Elliott said, the site isn’t against consumerism or capitalism.

“It’s not anti-anything,” he said. “I’m just a guy, and this is about what I buy and why I buy.”

The site has made him more conscious of his spending and eating habits. While chronicling his purchases, he says, he noticed a startling trend: He was polishing off many bags of peanuts and eating a disturbing number of sandwiches from 7-Eleven. He resolved to cut back.

Though the site started as a lark, Elliott said, he found the writing “surprisingly satisfying.” The project has kept him productive, forcing him to bang out several reviews a day. He has thought about going to journalism school.

But in one big way, he already has accomplished his dream: The site has made him the writer he always wanted to be.