San Francisco Restaurant Closes After TikTok Influencer Drama

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The world of fine dining has faced a bit of a reckoning in recent years due to the industry’s reputation for fostering toxic work environments. Some progress has been made, but there’s still plenty of work to be done—a reality reflected in a saga that led to an eatery in San Francisco shutting down for good after a chef moved a TikTok influencer to tears.

The restaurant industry is steeped in a mystique that stems from the many famous chefs who’ve been positioned as almost legendary figures as well as books, movies, and television shows that have helped glamorize that particular realm.

With that said, many people who’ve made a living in professional kitchens would tell you to avoid them like the plague if you asked them for advice about following the same path, as going that route usually means signing up for low pay and long hours in a notoriously high-paced and fairly ruthless work environment.

Gordon Ramsey built his personal brand on being a vindictive authoritarian who never thinks twice about yelling at and belittling his underlings, an approach that mirrors the one harnessed by Marco Pierre White, the chef he trained under in London and a man who was just as notorious for subjecting employees and customers to alarming tirades and violent outbursts.

Those two men are far from the only notable chefs linked to stories about their tendency to rule over their domain like a dictator, and there was once a time when that approach to management was essentially accepted and largely overlooked if it was able to produce the desired results.

However, that attitude has gradually begun to change with the help of many eaters who have become understandably concerned about the ethics of patronizing an establishment built on a foundation of mistreatment, and many chefs have made conscious efforts to change things from within and end the cycle of abuse that was once normalized.

With that said, there are naturally going to be some bad apples, and one who was nominated for multiple James Beard awards played an instrumental role in the closure of the restaurant he had a stake in.

Kis Cafe in San Francisco has shut down after chef and co-owner Luke Sung butted heads with a TikTok influencer

Social media has emerged as an invaluable tool in every restaurant’s arsenal, as going viral on Instagram or TikTok can result in a flood of customers flocking to your business.

However, many chefs have a love-hate relationship with the internet thanks to the unprecedented amount of power customers can wield; the upside of having your food blow up can be canceled out by negative reviews on Yelp or Google or a subpar evaluation from one of the many influencers who amass a following by sharing their thoughts online.

That includes a TikTok user known as @itskarlabb, who had around 15,000 followers on the platform when she posted a video recounting a very negative experience with a chef she initially declined to name while recapping a collaboration that ended with her being moved to tears due to what she was subjected to during the visit.

However, she dropped enough clues to allow internet detectives to determine the person she was describing was Luke Sung, who initially made a name for himself as the head chef at Isa in San Francisco before opening up Kis Cafe, a wine bar that began operating in the Hayes Valley neighborhood earlier this year.

Sung was nominated for Rising Star Chef of the Year at the James Beard Foundation Awards in 2002 and 2003 due to his work at Isa and had taken a lengthy hiatus from the industry before returning with Kis Cafe alongside co-owner Eric Lin.

The notion that all press is good press was firmly debunked based on the backlash Sung managed to attract after Karla’s accusations made the rounds, as Kis Cafe was bombed by negative reviews before the eatery announced he’d resigned from his position in the kitchen last week.

It appeared the restaurant was going to continue to operate after shutting down to reassess its options, but on Monday, its Instagram bio was changed to read “permanently closed” as Sung used the platform to share an apology where he took accountability for that development (he noted his daugther, Isa—who has also establishd herself as a TikTok influencer—had been caught in the crossfire due to people who opted to harass her despite having played no role in the initial drama).

Karla voiced her displeasure with that harassment campaign in a follow-up she posted after Sung was identified but has not addressed the situation since. BroBible has reached out to her for comment via email and will update this article to reflect her response if one is received.