“What Type of Influencer Is That” — Food Blogger Gets Slammed Online After Sabotage Attempt

"Foodies in the LA Bay area, I hope you never act like this L.A. foodie...ever in your life...please don't do this," Andrew Eats in SF (@andreweatsinsf) a California-based TikToker urges his viewers in a recent viral clip he posted to his account.

He superimposes himself on a green-screen of a text conversation between the L.A. foodie in question, named Tiff, and a local business.

So what did the business say that caused the L.A. Foodie to write: "May your business never succeed And may you close down" you ask? Andrew explains in his video delineating the situation.

He said that the business in question, 626 Hospitality, which provides ice cream to other restaurants and has their own shop, posted about their interaction with a food blogger / Influencer who was interested in partnering up with them.

Andrew said that while the woman's message did seem a bit on the "impersonal" side for his tastes, as he, himself, would've probably been a little bit more detailed in reaching out to a food business to see if they wanted to collaborate, that there was ultimately nothing wrong with that first ping.

626 Hospitality responded to the food blogger, Tiff, thanking them for the reach out and asking if she could reach back out to them in 2 weeks as they were busy preparing for their "soft opening" and that the company would be in a better position to "give [their] conversation" about a possible collaboration "the attention it deserves."

Again, Andrew says that this type of response is par the course in an Influencer-restaurant-collaboration-dynamic as businesses often have a lot going on and have to prioritize accordingly.

He seems to think that Tiff made a mistake, however, for not responding to the business until January (she originally messaged on October 29th) so instead of hitting them up in the middle of November, she pinged them several weeks after that.

The follow-up message Tiff sent them coincided at another rough time for the business: the first time they were in the process of dealing with a soft opening, a rep from 626 Hospitality told her. The second time, there was a family emergency they had to tend to, which they explained to Tiff in a follow-up message.

Upon explaining the situation to Tiff and then declining her offer to collaborate, the L.A. Food Blogger basically told them to go and kick rocks and wished that their business would fail, even after hearing that they were in the midst of still "dealing" with a family emergency.

"That's just cruel," he said, urging anyone else who is in the food blogging business to never behave the way that Tiff did in her conversation with 626 Hospitality. "It will come back to you. As a Google reviewer for 7 years you are never allowed to leave a review for a business you actually haven't been to as a customer," he adds.

The reason why Andrew brings that up is because it seems that Tiff went to 626 Hospitality's page to malign their business, echoing some of the same messaging she penned to them in her DMs, telling folks to never give them their money and stating that she doesn't want the place to succeed because they dared to decline her offer for collaboration.

Andrew went on to say that ethically she still shouldn't leave a review if she received any type of comped meal or payment for her services: "She still cannot leave a review for a business because if anything is comped, if she's paid, you know doesn't really matter either or, it's considered inauthentic for Google and Yelp, so for all the foodies out there, never leave a review."

His video then transitions to a screenshot Yelp review that Tiff left on the business' page as well, which he says was summarily taken down, "Thank you Yelp community managers," he says into the camera.

In what looks like a reaction to being called out by the business on social media for her behavior, Andrew points out that Tiff has deactivated her social media accounts, except for her TikTok.

"All in all y'all, if you're a foodie, content creator, anywhere in the world please treat these small businesses with respect and with you know, flexibility. Because things can happen, it's happened to me a lot, where I message a restaurant, and actually don't get to come for another couple months because of like events, family stuff, whatever," he says towards the end of the video before showing off the type of products 626 Hospitality Group serves up to its customers.

Several TikTokers who responded to his video applauded 626 Hospitality for keeping its response to Tiff "classy" while others lambasted the food blogger for "toxic" behavior.

Others said that they knew the owners of 626 personally and said they were "the sweetest."