Owner responses

The subject’s owner — or anyone — can respond to a review:

$response = Reviews::respond($review, $owner, 'Thanks for the feedback!');
// or, with an optional title:
$response = $review->respond($owner, 'Thanks for the feedback!', 'Reply from the owner');

$review->responses;       // HasMany of responses
$response->parent;        // BelongsTo back to the original review
$response->isResponse();  // true

A response is itself a row in the reviews table, tied to its parent via parent_id. It:

• carries no rating;
• shares the parent’s subject, so it is found alongside the parent’s reviews;
• is approved immediately and skips the moderator — it never sits in the moderation queue;
• never counts toward averages, counts, distributions or cached aggregates;
• fires ReviewResponded with both the parent and the response.

Reading responses

// Load each review with its replies in one query:
$reviews = $restaurant->approvedReviews()->with('responses')->latestFirst()->get();

// Only replies:
Review::query()->for($restaurant)->responses()->get();

Use topLevel() — or the approvedReviews / topLevelReviews relations — wherever you list reviews, so responses show under their parent rather than beside it.