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THIS MONTH LAST YEAR…
Steak was treated as a fancy fancy affair and it’s because…the shit was expensive. That’s it. It was even more expensive when chosen as your main at Sizzler; the fanciest of buffets.
Sizzler could have be reserved for the most celebratory of celebrations, such as Mother’s Day and Your-uncle-beat-the-case-and-avoided-life-in-jail type of celebration. Because not only did Sizzler offer a microscopic, but decent buffet (or, what they call a “salad bar”)…you could also order a steak dinner that came with a baked potato and the salad bar. By design.
Would a Bay Area visit from Keith Lee be as helpful as it seems to be in other cities across the United States? Leave your thougths in the comments.
Nearly two weeks ago TikTok food influencer Keith Lee made an announcement that the next stop on his self-guided and self-funded food tour was going to be the “Bay Area.” The rules of the tour were the same as all other cities: he’d only visit the restaurants locals recommend. News spread like wildfire. As a devoted follower of the former mixed martial arts fighter, I had never seen any of the local news outlets from his previous tour destinations (Atlanta, Houston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago) get ahead of his visit to alert the troops, “Keith Lee is coming.” Unfortunately, the alert wasn’t enough. Keith Lee and his family only stayed in the Bay Area for three days before cutting the tour short, calling it quits and heading back to their home base in Las Vegas.
If you’re one of the many people who are still asking, “Who’s Keith Lee?” This Detroit, Michigan native, former MMA fighter and self-appointed food critic is no stranger to his 15 million followers on TikTok. But he’s still relatively unknown to the world outside of social media.
Lee turned to TikTok in 2020 as a coping mechanism for his social anxiety. In 2021 he started focusing on visiting restaurants in Las Vegas, with the purpose of finding out why that restaurant wasn’t more well known: “Is it due to their lack of marketing, poor customer service, or food? I got it. Let’s rate it from one to ten.” Always with a disclaimer that “although I may not like it, you may like it. We don’t have the same taste buds.” This became his niche. Visiting struggling “mom and pop” restaurants that would contact him for help. The plaudit or the downfall was immediate. Much the same with Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, if the business got the stamp of approval the lines were wrapped around the corner with hours long waits. Lee’s disciples named it, The Keith Lee effect.
Much unlike Triple D, Lee’s disapproval is public (but, constructive) and the comments from Lee’s disciples, brutal. “Might as well pack it up and board the windows,” one of his followers commented on a restaurant Lee didn’t like.
That’s it. He’s just a man who ate and reviewed food on social media.
What might attribute to Lee’s rapid rise in the short span of three years creating social media content? He’s your everyday man. He’s never heard of Gael Greene, James Beard, or Ruth Reichl. He’s him, he’s you, he’s me. We all see a little piece of ourselves in Lee. He is the face of what new food media looks like; democratic, diverse and honest.
On the other hand, his palette is very restricted. He’s allergic to shellfish. He claims he’s a “texture person,” and is opposed to certain textures. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat Southeast Asian food. And he does tend to stick to his safe foods.
Last week Keith Lee hit the Bay Area and his first visit was a restaurant called Double Decker in San Francisco’s. It was a bust. On the second day he connected with bay area native @bayareafoodz that took Lee to eat tacos made by Chef Green in West Oakland. Third day, @daeatzwitbri (another bay area native) led him to another Oakland eatery called Mama T’s. Lee did visit other cities in The Bay, including Vallejo, but he said he had six videos sitting in his drafts that he didn’t feel comfortable posting.
That’s three different places all recommended to him by people from and in the Bay Area. Nine places in total. How many places do people want this man to visit before they have to admit that maybe the food here isn’t as good as people here seem to think it is? Maybe it’s one of the reasons why The Bay is having a harder time bouncing back is because people are not willing to admit that help is needed. The Bay got hit the hardest because we relied on that tech money and they were the first to bail. Even with all of the tax breaks the city gave those same tech businesses.
What stuck out the most was not the food Lee consumed or the restaurants he visited, but his reaction to his visit. “I truly don’t believe the Bay Area is a place for tourists right now…As an outsider, I wish the city would step in. I don’t know if they have. I don’t know if they’ve been trying, but just from an outsider looking in, it don’t look like there was much city interference.” And he was an outsider…a tourist.
He said he was shocked by the amount of “burned up cars” they saw people living in. The boarded up restaurants. The restaurants hours (some restaurants being closed on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays). This sent locals into a fury.
“He didn’t need to repeat what every other news media already says about San Francisco and Oakland.” “Don’t worry about what we’re going through, just tell us if the food is good.” “San Francisco and Oakland aren’t the only cities in The Bay.” “Someone took him to the Brenda’s in the Tenderloin? Why didn’t they take him to her other locations?”
As a native Northern Californian who has been in The Bay since 2004, all of these statements seem wild to me. Lee considers himself a man of god. And there are some people, whether faith believers or not, that cannot in good conscience walk right passed (sp) and over concentrated suffering into a restaurant and “rate the food one to ten,” which is essentially what a lot of locals were advising him to do. The fact that people are saying “don’t put our business on blast,” but then want to steer him away from that business…is unhinged. Instead of blaming the people in power that have the money and resources to make changes in the TL, they want to steer tourists away from the TL. That’s essentially lying through omission.
There’s a lot of misdirected anger. I know people don’t want to hear this, but…the shit is bad! I’m personally guilty of protecting my native California when I’m traveling for work, finding myself on set with people in the Midwest asking me, “Is it true what they say about SF?” I give them the diplomatic elusive response, “things are bad all over.”
SHIT IS FUCKED UP HERE!
The side of my mom’s halfplex is being used as a human toilet (literally) where it’s becoming a biohazard at this point from the people living in their cars taking a shit against the side of her fence. She’s not cleaning it up and the fucking county sure ain’t coming out to clean it up. But! There’s also people taking a shit in front of homes going up for sale in San Francisco for over $2M.
I can assure you that while these problems may exist all over the US, the homeless encampments on the sidewalks in front of $2M homes, the blocks and blocks of homeless living in their cars, the lack of mental health assistance and the continuous attack on independently-owned businesses being robbed with their windows getting smashed (Colonial Donuts has been robbed 3 times in 12 months!) seems to be a west coast problem. I don’t see this happening anywhere else during my travels. And you don’t have to be in California for a long period of time to see the issues. It’s right there. All the time.
When is anyone gonna admit we have a problem and more importantly…gonna do something?! “We got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.” But, how do you help a restaurant that’s struggling in an area that’s also struggling? There lies the complicated relationship with several cities situated inside of The Bay.
To those who say, “he only went to SF and Oakland.” Y’all are missing the big picture. He came here…saw the state of things…and dipped. Not to mention that someone fed him some food that gave him an allergic reaction when he clearly inquired about their sanitation practices, to which they lied and almost took our man out. Sending him to Highland ER.
I’d say it was time for him to pack up and go.
Here’s a message from Keith Lee’s anger translator.
THANK YOU!!! i got so tired of reading all the deniers defending the shitty state of affairs in the Bay. and i've been living here far longer than most of those food critics, who weren't even born when i moved to the Bay.
I’m paid again. Give me that Dansk lid porn please.