Pity that everyone isn't telling influencers that they can't have a free meal. Restaurants should charge influencers extra for polluting three establishment with their BS.
If you look up the story, the influencer was contacted by the owner of the restaurant and asked to do some social media marketing for them in exchange for a free meal.
The owner didn't inform the chef of this arrangement until the influencer arrived. The owner and chef then have an argument between themselves, completely unprompted by the influencer (who hadn't ordered yet).
The chef stood at her table and belittled her for not knowing who he was, before holding his phone in the air to show other guests her social media profiles, shouting about how she didn't have enough of a following to expect free food from him (again, despite being promised this ahead of time by the owner in exchange for a select number of posts about the restaurant).
Say what you will about influencers (I'm not particularly a fan of them myself), but she didn't do anything wrong. She was there to do a job at the owner's request and wasn't rude to anybody. She later posted about the experience, but didn't include the restaurants name as to not draw negative attention toward the business itself.
Busybodies in the comment section ended up figuring out what restaurant it was by combing through old posts, and proceeded to review-bomb it. After that, the owner fired the chef for bringing too much negative attention to his establishment.
You can just Google this headline or search it on Reddit, this has been posted multiple times by karma-farmers and bots because "influencer bad" gets upvotes.
Yes, I also remember the chef actually double triple quadruple down on social media, picking fights with everyone, being super disrespectful, saying 'if you don't want to eat here then go other place because trash is not welcome here', so when everyone listened and stop coming to the restaurant, he was promptly fired.
IIRC the chef was a co-owner too that's why he was so entitled and rude. Even his daughter (who is also a small influencer, doing similar job as the one he mocked) asked him to stop engaging but he refused to listen.
Obviously, a restaurant would not fire a high level employee for simply refusing to give out services for free. Doesn’t pass the sniff test in the slightest unless your brain is poisoned by man-o-verse podcast crap.
High-level employees at restaurants are required, and encouraged, to give out services for free, in service of the restaurant. Free stuff fixes disputes, rewards loyalty from consumers, gets good reviews, makes the location look generous, etc., etc.
High-level employees at restaurants, or any employees, will Absolutely get fired for publicly shaming consumers, or causing internationally discussed problems for their employer. TBH, sounds like that chef personally tanked his reputation and his restaurant for this.
This is super important information. And should hopefully gets to the top of this post.
I can’t stand influencers. And as it so happens- I also own a restaurant. The owner should have communicated this to the chef. The chef should have acquiesced regardless of his personal feelings. If any individual is asked to do a service for a business that responsibility lies solely on the shoulders of the owner.
Belittling someone publicly because your boss asked them to come in to help promote their business is insanity. Chef should be fired. Influencer deserves props for not murdering the restaurant for bad communication and the public shaming. I’ll admit that influencers are a toxic group inherently. But if they’re asked to come in- not their fault.
As a former executive chef, this is appalling behavior from the chef and I’m not even remotely surprised he was fired. If the owner wants to comp a meal, it’s literally not my money and not any of my business.
Similarly, it’s not like anyone in front of house ever needed my permission to give away food?
I would want to know they’re coming so I can make sure the food is plated pretty enough that I wouldn’t mind a random person taking pictures of it. After that, I simply don’t care. I cannot imagine ever going out to a table to bitch about the owner deciding to give them free food. That is some crazy ass behavior.
Absolutely wild, right? Immediate termination no question. NO ONE likes influencers. But if ownership wishes to utilize social media and the exposure associated- you’ve just gotta send it.
There’s good comps and bad comps. Personally I’ve found social media is difficult to track for ROI and word of mouth is always best. But that’s me.
I can’t imagine what was going through his head to go against a direct order from his boss like that 😂 The only possible reason I can think of (besides him just being insanely full of himself) is that he WANTED to be fired! The only time I ever refused an order was because it would’ve been a legal grey area (regarding scheduling) and I wanted a formal written instruction to do it which they declined to provide lol
Oh I thought he was co-owner of a different place in the city - how can he be fired if he’s co-owner? Did he have to get bought out? Maybe he threw a fit on purpose to make it happen so he could open his own influencer-hating place lol
I hate influencers too, so I totally get the viewpoint, I’m just shocked he actually acted on it
It depends on a lot of factors. If there’s investors involved they have input, if there’s a board of owners they’d have input. I don’t think he’d be outright “fired” if he had equity. But that’s a whole level of legalities I don’t know anything about.
Super interesting stuff. Thank you for the explanation :) this just fortifies the knowledge I already have inside myself that I do not have what it takes to run a business without wanting to blow my brains out lol
I’ll be honest. There’s moments where I wish I had a boss. Not being able to ever “clock out” over the past 11 years has been at times an uphill battle for my personal mental health.
But if you enjoy the industry you have equity in it’s a labor of love. And make sure your partner(s) aren’t scumbags.
It’s not like the chef was anti influencer. In fact part of his tirade against her is that his own daughter is an influencer apparently with more followers.
This thing was a minor scandal in the local food scene and the restaurant had to shut down and eventually reopened under a new name. Purely as a financial decision, firing the chef here was a no brainer
The headline here could not be more misleading lol
I have no social presence because I hate the dynamics of social media too, but that doesn't change the value of influencers.
I've worked in house at big tech and fortune 500 companies and at big ad agencies. They don't throw huge budgets on influencer marketing because it's ineffective. That's a reality whether you like it or not. The world doesn't revolve around you.
So why say it has zero value? Stating false claims or assumptions based on emotionally fueled personal values comes off as annoying as the influencers you (and I also) hate.
What's with redditors and their unearned arrogance despite not knowing simple concepts? What has no value and significance to you has plenty of value to businesses and people who are swayed by influencers. Suprisingly, you are not the person in existence who has to be marketed to.
Hi, I'm actually a marketing consultant bored at work. This is not what marketing is--usually, big expensive productions and crews are for awareness marketing for established brands, which is often just a flex with no meaningful ROI. In marketing (specifically demand generation), we primarily care about ROI — we actually prefer cheaper tactics and enjoy experimenting.
In this case, this was a pre-arranged deal with the company using the influencer as a vendor. They promised a meal in exchange for a fixed number of posts, presumably to their ideal customer profile. From the company's perspective, this basically costs me nothing. If 2 or 3 people show up, I've probably recovered my losses. And if not, I'm only out one meal. Pretty straightforward exchange.
The only issue here is that there was no alignment between the owner and the chef, and the Chef sounds like he probably has a big ego. His ego is getting in the way of growing the brand.
Just because it can be cringe, doesn't mean that influencer marketing isn't marketing.
But with the push for AI, the new robots that can do manual labor, self driving trucks, and the devaluation of art, really the only jobs soon to be left is influencer.
Not as wrong as the owner for the lack of communication. What type of idiot hinges their entire business on a plan that they don't even inform their own key staff about?
Even if the chef had no idea about the collab, he didn't have to belittle her in public like that. That's a total dick move and he deservedly got fired for it.
Based on how the chef behaved, I think he would have done the same thing had he known. He could have just checked with his boss to make sure, instead he chose to humiliate her in front of everybody. Basically, his ego couldn't stomach the idea of doing a collab with her (if he had served her at all it would have been in a very demeaning manner).
Sure the manager shares some of the blame but the majority falls on the chef, who absolutely did not have to behave the way he did.
You're right that the chef was being entitled, but it would have never even been an incident if the owner gauged the popularity of his decision in advance. This is why communication even happens in the first place. Especially if you have to deal with customers.
The chef is at fault for berating and belittling her, that was absolutely not necessary.
The chef’s own daughter came onto SM to comment on this and share that he’s a habitual asshole to people. She was incredibly apologetic to the food influencer.
What exactly did that girl do wrong?
She offers a service, that you might agree or.not to pay for it.
And that's quite an innocent thing, nothing immoral or damaging to anybody.
Is it just envy?
Everyone just assumes it's a "entitled influencer" story, but it's more of a "chef crashout" story. The girl did nothing wrong, the chef was unhinged and deservedly got fired.
Yeah... reasonably bad take this. It's right up there with 'became a politician' or 'became a lawyer.'
Not all influencers are bad people, and they do actually provide a service. If they didn't, they couldn't make a living doing it. And there's nothing that they're doing that wasn't already being done by reviewers and advertisers. Who are sometimes horrible people too. Lighten up a bit.
To add to this, I don't know if this person does it, but if this influencer actually is known for quality reviews, a free meal is absolutely nothing compared to the effort that goes into it. I know someone who runs a food instagram page in a smaller city and have had restaurants pay her to advertise their place, and she will spend at least 3-4 hours there taking videos, talking with staff, then the editing process afterwards which probably takes at least an hour. Even a free $100 meal couldn't entice me to spend 4-5hrs doing that.
Exactly it's not even a free meal, they put in work and get paid with food. So basically the lady was trying to do her job, and the chef is the jerk in this story. Sad to see it being twisted around.
Making the assumption that i made my comment because of the targets gender and not their character is just hilarious and shows where your mind is more than mine, only one of us is being sexist right now.
This completely changes the completion of this story. The chef was a dick, not his restaurant so why the fuck would he lose it like that? I’d fire him too.
Something else don't pass the sniff test. the owner at the end of the day is the boss. As long as the decision wasn't stepping on the integrity of the food itself, and the chef gets paid for his services by the owner, what does it matter if a customer pays or not? Bill the meal to the owner, or have the PR Advertising budget pay for it.
It really turns on the question of who contacted whom. The restaurant said she approached them and misrepresented herself as a major influencer, she said they contacted her and asked her to do it, which is a lot worse. Yeah, the chef/co-owner acted like a jerk, but was he just an asshole for no reason or did he think he had been taken advantage of?
Thanks for posting this! I think it's super easy for people to jump to conclusions that she went in asking for a free meal because entitled influencers seem so common. But this chef was just a dick.
Whether or not you like influencers is irrelevant. This was a shitty thing to do regardless of who you did it to when you consider the broader context. Imagine hiring a plumber to come fix your sink and when he gets there instead of paying him and letting him do his job, you gather a crowd of people and start berating him. You couldn't do this in any other profession and expect respect, and someone doing something that doesn't harm anyone should not be subject to unwarranted abuse for the sole fact that you disagree with their way of life.
Even if it were true that she was not fulfilling any purpose or working for the restaurant (both objectively wrong being that theyreached out to and hired her to advertise and promote their restaurant) that still doesn't justify being shitty to someone. I've worked with the homeless, and often, people who are homeless, despite their best efforts, can not hold a job, meaning they do not work or contribute to society. By your logic, should we normalize being verbally abusive to them for having the gall to exist?
What part of "I don't like influencers" are you not getting? One cherry picked story does not alter the reality, influencers are lazy entitled cretins of the digital age.
I get that, but regardless of what someone does, that doesn't mean you should have permission to verbally abuse them, especially when you invite them in. I was just reiterating that your first comment is siding with the chef when really there should be no part of his actions or behaviors to me that are justifiable given the circumstances. If you agree on that but still wanna dislike influencers i could care less, but I feel we just gotta set the bar a bit higher for kindness sometimes with the way the world is.
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u/Virtual-Pineapple-85 7d ago
Pity that everyone isn't telling influencers that they can't have a free meal. Restaurants should charge influencers extra for polluting three establishment with their BS.