The “Keith Lee” Effect

In the modern age of social media and technology, we have entered an era where influencers or big celebrity figures have become one of our main sources of change. The very meaning of power has been redefined with how much change has been inspired by one simple message. This can extend to many things, whether it be swaying voter registration rates with a single Instagram post or tanking sales of a product or brand after one bad review. It’s amazing to think of the power of one click, one swipe, or one message in the right hands. Upon seeing this, many small businesses have taken to these platforms in the hopes of bringing attention to their brand, their business, and their products in a series of short posts and videos. However, it’s always a gamble on whether their posts will have enough traction, let alone give them a boost in business as it is. This is especially true for restaurants, who have taken to TikTok to promote their food. Yet even this is not enough for their business to take off, and all they have left to go on is word of mouth. That, however, is where Keith Lee comes in.  

Keith Lee is an influencer who mainly posts videos of food reviews on TikTok. He started out by posting videos where he would order takeout from various places around his hometown (Las Vegas) and rate each of the items he got out of 10. His ratings were stricter than the average food reviewer, however, and as his reviews continued, his audience realized that getting in the 9 to 10 range is extremely rare (very few items are a complete 10 out of 10). Lee emphasizes that his opinion towards the food is purely his own, and he means no harm towards the restaurant or the business. He also encourages his audience to try out the food for themselves, as he acknowledges that taste and preference is purely subjective. When there are businesses that are struggling yet have good food (in his opinion), Lee will do his best to explain what he believes to be the problem (marketing, customer services, etc). But he never cautions anyone against going to a restaurant, and his emphasis on objectivity as well as fair judgment may have been what contributed to his rise in popularity and his constant appearanced on my for you page. Now he has 15.7 million followers on TikTok and has earned a spot on the Forbes 30 under 30 website.  He has also started going on food tours to different parts of the United States based on viewer suggestions, ranging from the Bay Area to Houston, Texas.  

The most remarkable thing about his rise to fame, however, is the effect he’s had on small businesses. Coming from him, a small food review could lead to a previously slow restaurant to be booming with business practically overnight. A bad food review, however, could lead to the decline of a business, and this is largely because Lee also factors customer service and overall experience into his reviews. This phenomenon is what followers have thus dubbed the “Keith Lee effect”. 

the ups and downs

One of the best examples of Keith Lee’s patronage is Frankensons Pizzeria. This was a business that, according to his summary of an employee’s words, is “really slow, they really can’t afford rent…It’s a family owned business and the food is delicious, but [they] don’t have the marketing behind it.” The employee had emailed Lee saying, “The owner reached out to another food creator, and they tried to charge [the restaurant] $2600 to do a food review; how much [does he] charge?” to which he responded that he didn’t charge them anything. When doing reviews, Lee makes sure to order over the phone to factor in customer service and he said that the owner, Frank, took his time and was patient. Initially when he went in to pick up the food, Frank told him to get something out of the fridge free of charge despite not knowing who Lee was, and when he told him that he was a food critic (after being asked), Frank told him about their situation in depth. The only bad review that they had on Yelp was that they closed earlier than their posted time on Google, which was 1am, but Frank stressed that he couldn’t afford to be open that late. Lee emphasized that he would have to be completely honest, and if there was a bad review that he “wasn’t trying to be malicious.” Overall the majority of the food that he got was rated exceptionally from 8 to 10 out of 10, with the exception of the fries which were a 2 out of 10, the ranch which was 6.5 out of 10 and the lemon pepper wing which was a 10 out of 10 (Lee records himself finishing the entire thing). With such high reviews, he concludes that “there is no way [they] should be behind on rent or struggling to pay rent…it’s marketing.” The video garnered 51 million views, and only 4 days after the video was posted, the restaurant is seen with a line out of the door with “2-3 hour wait times all day”. User Sabrina commented on the original video that “HE RAN OUT OF PRODUCT he got so much business from this!” Now the restaurant has a 3.9 star rating on Yelp and 4.5 stars on Google Reviews, truly showcasing the power of what a single food review could do to a small business. 

Another business that saw a massive surge in support was Dynamite KBBQ. The owner of the business, whose dream goal was to open a restaurant, unfortunately had stage 4 tongue cancer and passed away. Keith Lee posted a video sharing this news, which he then followed up by “asking the community to show up for this family.” He said that the mom and the son had taken over the business, but he asked the city of Las Vegas to show up and “for the line to be out the door just to let them know, [the city is] here.” Lee said that he would be there himself as the doors opened on December 31st, 2023. Lo and behold, there were multiple videos compiled by Lee from people on Instagram recording the line rounding the corner outside of the door with a 5 hour wait time. When he went inside to talk to the mom and son, he said that “the second the mom saw [him], she broke down in tears.” At the end of the day, Lee did not take any money, all he wanted to do was show that the city of Vegas was here for them and that they are not alone. His review for the restaurant was posted at the beginning of the year in 2023, when the father was still alive, and he had returned to the restaurant after receiving the news from the owner’s son of his passing. In return he not only boosted their business, but he also made the father’s dream come true. This was yet again another demonstration of Keith Lee’s effect on numerous restaurants. 

Despite Keith Lee’s effect on small businesses and restaurants across the nation, not everything is sunshine and rainbows. There have been a few scandals regarding his statements with bigger restaurants that got bad reviews from Lee, as some of these restaurants like to publicly disagree with his criticism of their foods. During his food tour in Atlanta, Lee got food from a restaurant called The Real Milk and Honey, or at least attempted to. He said that he tried to call in, but was greeted with an automatic message saying that they don’t take call-in orders and takeout was only available through DoorDash. His family went on DoorDash to order at 4pm but the site said the restaurant was closed, despite their closing time online being 5pm. Since they were already there, Lee had his family go inside to order but then they said they were closed for deep cleaning despite the fact there were people still inside eating and picking up their orders. He then paused his live explanation with a voice over clarifying that this was not one person’s fault and in fact the person who told his family of the rule was nice. Atlanta has restaurants with specific rules which may turn away those who are not locals, and Lee believed that this was the case for him and his family. He then went inside and once the workers recognized him they “attempted their services”, but he declined with his reasoning being that he was just like everyone else, and in regards to their gesture, “if [they’re] not going to do it then, don’t do it now.”  

With all of this said, Lee states that he “does not support, condone, or agree, tearing down these businesses,” as it all comes down to personal experience. He concludes by emphasizing that his reviews will be 100% honest and “that comes with the good, and the not so good.” The PR managers at The Real Milk and Honey did not take this lightly as they posted a video in response as a skit, which is now taken down. In the video, there are three people sitting on a couch and a woman shows her phone to a man sitting in the middle asking if he knows who Keith Lee is, to which he responds, “Who is this Keith Lee?” and shrugs his shoulders. The caption states: “As a successful restaraunteur/owner I never drag anyone’s business even if I’ve had a disappointing moment because I have principles and I know how hard any business worked just to start!”. This, of course, did not translate well with the public as comments have berated the business for their unprofessional behavior and hypocritical attitude. One comment points out the manager’s further response which apparently included: don’t trust Keith lee because he’s autistic” according to user Gwen Thornton. Keith Lee’s response was encapsulated in his Atlanta Food Tour Recap video where he mentions another restaurant called Milk and Honey, to which he remarks regarding both restaurants that followers should “not leave hate, nowhere.” Unironically his sentiments with eating in Atlanta were echoed by Cardi B who said in an Instagram live, “eating in Atlanta…it is such an event…they don’t do no pickup orders, they don’t do deliveries…”. Whether this behavior is unique to Atlanta or not, backlash from bad reviews from Keith Lee are not uncommon, and this shows the flip side of his influence in the American food industry.  

the keith lee hack?

People have taken things into their own hands with the “Keith Lee effect” and have ordered their food under his name in order to get better food from restaurants. The reason this works is because Keith Lee always orders takeout to review food from home or in his car, and recently he uploaded a video testing the hack himself. He ordered two separate orders from Five Guys under his own name and an alias, then he compared the two orders in size and quality. The order under his name was packed with fries, so much so that there were extra fries that fell in the bag and, as Lee remarked, “This has like, ten times more seasoning.” The sandwiches he got were also bigger in size than that of his alias, and he said that “this has way more cheese…[he] thought there were like 20 slices.” So, the hack is tried and tested by Keith Lee himself, meaning it might be better to order as him the next time you want a nice meal.  

thoughts

Personally, I have been seeing Keith Lee’s videos all over my TikTok for you page for the past year and half, and it amazes me every time a business gets a great review and is seen with lines around the corner the next day. It has demonstrated that influencers in general have so much power at their fingertips when it comes to swaying opinions and inspiring change, but I wonder how much this speaks to public opinion as a whole and how easily their actions can be influenced through public figures online. Also, Keith Lee’s system for reviewing food is fair and digestible, and his cautions to refrain from sending hate to restaurants who received bad reviews has only made me respect him more. Based solely on what I’ve seen, it seems that there are so many small businesses with amazing food that lack good marketing, which sometimes isn’t their fault as there is no guarantee that a social media account will skyrocket in popularity immediately. With bigger businesses that receive bad reviews, I’ve found that they either respect the criticisms or resort to retaliation that only harms their business in the end. Yet overall, the phenomenon of the “Keith Lee effect” is astounding to me, and if one man can have such an effect on small restaurants, I wonder how much can be done with other small businesses if all it takes is one small review. 

• #food
• smallbusiness
• tastetesting