A popular food critic cut short his food tour of California’s Bay Area, slamming the city as “not a place for tourists right now” as residents are just trying to survive.
Keith Lee, who has more than 15 million followers on TikTok, posts reviews of restaurants he’s tried around the country and often criticizes how the business could be better.
He made his first stops at a small San Francisco restaurant on January 9 and another restaurant in Oakland, where he left a $2,500 tip before he cut the tour short.
“Unfortunately the Bay Area stop on the Keith family food tour has officially come to an end, prematurely,” Lee said in his TikTok video, which has been viewed more than 2.4 million times.
Instead of food, Lee directs his criticism to issues plaguing the city following his own experiences.
“I really don’t believe the Bay is really for tourists now, and that’s me, a tourist,” Lee said. “They are just focused on survival, that is the business owners, the local people.”
“The amount of tents and residential structures and charred cars we saw people living in was shocking. Just from the outside looking in, it doesn’t look like a lot of urban distractions.”
Keith Lee made his first stop at a small San Francisco restaurant on January 9, but soon called it quits for his safety and was hospitalized for a shellfish allergy. keith_lee125/TikTok
“As an outsider, I hope the city will come in. I don’t know if they have. I don’t know if they’ve tried, but just from an outsider looking in, it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of urban disruption.”
Before his trip to the Bay Area, Lee was warned of rampant crime and car break-ins, with some areas being compared to Gotham City.
Lee wasn’t too thrilled with the food he had either, saying he wasn’t happy with the actual food and the six-hour wait times he sometimes had to endure.
Lee also developed a shellfish allergy during the trip.
Lee slammed some restaurants for waiting for hours in an area that isn’t the best place for people to wait outside. keith_lee125/TikTok The Bay Area has been plagued by rampant crime and an increasing homeless population over the past few years. Xinhua/Shutterstock
The Detroit native said his family goes to several restaurants and doesn’t feel comfortable sharing his criticism of the eatery because he doesn’t have anything constructive to say, and worries his influence will hurt business.
“I want to emphasize that it is not normal for us to go to a restaurant, not like it and not post it. Any other time we run into this situation, I always have some kind of constructive thing to say. This is different,” said Lee
Although he downplays his experience in the city, he is grateful and says he appreciates the people he met in his short time there.
In a follow-up video, Lee explained that he never felt unsafe in the area he was in.
Lee however added that people, mostly tourists, should not wait outside for hours waiting to eat in the area where the restaurant is located.
He also ran through the hours of operation for some of the places he visited that were in the area near the airport and how they were closed for days and only operated for six hours on the days they were open.
The Detroit native said his family goes to several restaurants and doesn’t feel comfortable sharing his criticism of the eatery because he doesn’t have anything constructive to say, and worries his influence will hurt business. keith_lee125/TikTok
Many people have shared Lee’s views on homelessness and safety in the Bay area, including JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon who recently declared San Francisco to be in “much worse shape than New York.”
“I think every city, like every country, should think about what makes a city attractive, you know, its parks, its art, but it’s definitely safety,” Dimon told Fox. “Any city that doesn’t do its job well, it will lose its population.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
