San Francisco restaurant bombarded with negative reviews after alleged clash with TikTok influencer

(KRON) — A San Francisco restaurant run by a respected local chef was hit with a wave of one-star reviews, and a once-modest TikTok influencer was propelled to stardom, after an alleged argument ensued over a scheduled social media collaboration at the Hayes Valley restaurant Wednesday.

A video posted by TikTok user @itskarlabb

has received 8.6 million views and more than 800,000 likes since Wednesday night, when the self described “micro-influencer” took to social media to recount the uncomfortable interaction she had with the restaurant’s head chef.

In the video, the woman says she made an agreement to arrive at the restaurant shortly after 5 p.m. to feature its food on her account. But when she arrived, she was allegedly berated by the chef for having just 15,000 followers.

“He is not having it, saying to the host that he shouldn’t have invited me and that this was a mistake and that this was bad,” the influencer said. “… I am turning red because I am so embarrassed and I feel really disrespected.”

The chef allegedly told her that her videos weren’t high enough quality to represent the restaurant. Insulted, the woman agreed to leave the restaurant.

“At this point I’m crying, and I want to get out, so I tell him that I’m no longer interested in doing the collab’,” she said. “I tell him that I felt disrespected because they were talking about me right in front of me and belittling my work.”

The woman declined to reveal the name of the restaurant or its chef. But admitted that people on the internet seem to have “figured it out.” The sleuths have seemingly identified the involved restaurant as Kis Cafe, and the chef as renowned San Francisco restaurateur Luke Sung.

The restaurant’s Yelp and Google ratings plummeted after the social media video was posted. The restaurant was hit with thousands of negative reviews, many of which reference the TikTok video.

“The owner is very rude and only cares about how many followers you have on social media,” one review reads. “If you have under 600K followers, don’t even bother showing up.”

The negative publicity seems to have spilled over to other local restaurants. When Googling Sung’s previous restaurant, Isa Restaurant, Google returns the altered business name “Isa Restaurant (Not affiliated with Kis Cafe or Luke Sung since 2009).”

On Thursday, the woman posted an update to her TikTok account, saying that she woke up to an unexpected surge of new followers and kind messages.

“I woke up today to the most supportive and kind and genuine and encouraging comments and messages,” she said. “I could not be more grateful and shocked at how much empathy you guys have toward basically a stranger on the internet.”

According to her post, the woman has not received a direct response from the owner about her video. 

“I am really hoping that they are open to taking accountability and learning and growing from this experience,” she said.

In the meantime, she said that she plans to continue reviewing food and Bay Area restaurants on her TikTok channel, which has grown to nearly 150,000 followers in 24 hours.

“You don’t need to have 1 million followers to be respected or feel like you’re making a difference,” she said. “I love spotlighting small businesses and I want to continue to do that and have fun.”

KRON4 has reached out to the influencer and the restaurant in an attempt to confirm the account. However, the sources did not immediately respond.