A small Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, California, is gaining support online after a TikTok food content creator accused a social media influencer of taking advantage of a promotional deal and failing to deliver the content that had been promised.
The story was shared by @Daadisnacks, who is known for promoting small food businesses and occasionally calling out influencers or media personalities for behavior he believes harms restaurants. In his recent video, he claimed an influencer named Leah had arranged a collaboration with the family-owned restaurant, Men & Beasts, located in Echo Park, but had failed to follow through after receiving hundreds of dollars’ worth of food.
According to screenshots shown in the video, Leah initially contacted the restaurant asking if she and her sister could receive complimentary food in exchange for social media promotion. The restaurant agreed to the collaboration under the condition that each person involved would post promotional content that included an Instagram story, an Instagram Reel, and a TikTok video.
Shortly after the reservation was confirmed, Leah allegedly informed the restaurant that she would actually be bringing a larger group of people to the dinner. She claimed that several well-known food creators and publications would be joining the outing and could help promote the restaurant to a wider audience.
The Restaurant Was Allegedly Misled
One of the screenshots shared in the video appears to show the names of multiple food-related accounts that were allegedly supposed to participate. However, according to @Daadisnacks, those additional creators never actually took part in the collaboration.
When the influencer and her group later arrived at the restaurant, they reportedly racked up a bill of around $450 worth of food during the visit. While it is believed that Leah posted a few Instagram stories during the meal, the rest of the promotional content that had been promised never appeared online in the weeks that followed.
After noticing that the agreed content had not been posted, the restaurant attempted to contact the influencer for an explanation but those messages went unanswered. They also reached out directly to one of the food creators whose name had been mentioned in the original pitch but the creator reportedly said they had no knowledge of the dinner and had never agreed to participate in any promotion for the restaurant.
“[This] influencer ripped off a family-owned small business for hundreds of dollars of food and she thought she’d get away with it?” the TikTok creator said. “Leah, if you’re watching this, go back and pay for your food.”
Netizens’ Reactions to the California Restaurant Incident
In the comments, many viewers expressed frustration toward influencer culture and how some creators are insincere with their collaborations with small businesses. One commenter wrote, “Influencers are our new exhausting celebrities.” Another said, “I miss when influencers didn’t exist. it was just people trying new restaurants for fun.”
One person argued that businesses should not “let an influencer eat in exchange for a post without a contract signed.” Another suggested that restaurants “need to stop giving influencers stuff” entirely. Someone else added, “Atp, restaurants should only collab with influencers they’re reaching out to, not influencers who reach out to them. Happens too much.”
As of now, the influencer mentioned in the video has not publicly addressed the claims and has made her social media accounts private.
