Angie's List - www.angieslist.com - for local business and service recommendations.

If you can't find it by Googling, they might still have several reviews on Angie's List. This helped me avoid a nightmare contractor when getting my kitchen redone. Paid for itself hundredfold with that first recommendation alone.

They only take reviews from paying members, which means the risk of spam or sock puppet reviews is slightly lower than the free review sites like Yelp. And they actively encourage members to review business/services they've used/patronized, which means that you don't just see the disgruntled ones.