Keith Lee (Photo: Instagram, @keith_lee125)
Atlanta may be considered one of the country’s Black Meccas, but it seems that when it comes to customer service it’s not one of the city’s attributes.
TikTok food critic sensation Keith Lee visited the ATL. He left less than satisfied with the customer services at some of the city’s most popular restaurants–and it turns out many of the locals agreed with his assessment.
In recent reviews, Lee, who has 14.4 million followers on TikTok, has shared his experiences dining at various popular Atlanta restaurants, sparking conversations about service, rules, and prices in the city’s vibrant culinary landscape. Lee’s critiques covered restaurants like The Real Milk & Honey, Atlanta Breakfast Club, Juci Jerk, and Lil Baby’s The Seafood Menu, Complex reported. He shed light on the unique rules he encountered at some of these establishments, leaving many questioning the state of restaurant service in Atlanta.
For instance, at Atlanta Breakfast Club, Lee mentioned that they wouldn’t take orders or even serve water until everyone in his party had arrived. In another incident, The Real Milk & Honey claimed to be closing early for deep cleaning, even though customers were still coming in to pick up orders. Lee’s family had gone ahead to get food from The Real Milk & Honey and were turned away. When he personally went in, Lee said the restaurant tried to offer a table after recognizing him, but he declined– and, of course, did a TikTok on what happened.
In the TikTok he express that he wanted to be treated like a normal customer, and did not want special service, so he left.
The “clubification” of restaurants in Atlanta has long been a topic of discussion and Lee’s visit only highlighted the issue. Some dining establishments use marketing strategies reminiscent of nightclubs– such as bottle service, dress codes, no reservations, and long wait times.
Eden Hagos, creator of the @blackfoodie.co Instagram account, said the “clubification” of restaurants in Atlanta and other parts of the country has taken over, and it doesn’t allow for a true restaurant experience.
“It feels very exclusive,” she told Axios. “It creates this hype and popularity for the restaurant, but it doesn’t necessarily create a good experience for you as a guest.”
“In Atlanta, I found some places have unique rules, and this was one of them,” Lee said of the Real Milk and Honey’s policy.
The College Park eatery did a video response that was intended to be cute but backfired. In the video, the owners and their young daughter chatted about the Keith Lee video about their eatery, and in their video, one of the owners said he didn’t know who Lee was.
In the video’s caption, they thanked Lee for his visit and told him “there’s no love lost.” People seemed outraged about the flippant remark about not knowing who Lee, was and the video was taken down.
Keith Lee (Photo: Instagram, @keith_lee125, https://www.instagram.com/keith_lee125/?hl=en)
