California Restaurant Shuts Down After Chef Clashed With Influencer

A recently opened wine bar in Hayes Valley, California, called Kis Café, has shut down after the restaurant’s chef and co-owner clashed with an influencer, leading to a series of videos about the incident going viral online.

The Context

Last week, creator @itskarlabb shared a video on TikTok which had the text overlay “nightmare SF restaurant experience.”

In the video, which runs for over five minutes, the creator, Karla, details an experience she had during a collaboration with an unnamed restaurant. She says in the video that she had left the restaurant in tears. As of publication, the video has been viewed over 22 million times.

The restaurant has now closed down with the chef Luke Sung apologizing in a statement, saying he was “condescending, hurtful, and intimidating.”

What To Know

Karla says in the video that she had arrived at the restaurant early for the collaboration and that her husband was going to be joining her. She said that she was filming the restaurant and overheard the restaurant’s staff, including the chef, speaking about her, asking who she was, why she was there, and how many followers she had.

The chef then said she had too few followers to be doing the collaboration.

At the time, Karla had a following on TikTok of 15,000. Following the viral fallout Karla’s following has grown to over 396,000 on the platform, less than a week since she posted her original video.

Karla said she was turning red because she felt really embarrassed and that she “felt really disrespected.” She said that the chef who was speaking to her had said that her followers were not the kind of people who would eat in his restaurant, that he had won an award, and that his daughter had a significant following on social media. Karla said that she was crying during the interaction and ultimately left the restaurant.

“You don’t need to have a million followers to be respected or feel like you’re making a difference,” she said.

The video quickly went viral, and while Karla didn’t name the restaurant, social media users quickly identified the company in the comments.

She shared a follow-up video a day later. In this video, she said that she had not responded to any comments asking about the name of the restaurant or the owner, but that people had figured it out.

She continued, “I want to make it clear that I do not condone any type of bullying or slander to unrelated family members my issue was with this specific restaurant.”

Karla references, but does not name, the daughter of the chef, who is also an influencer.

The daughter, whose TikTok handle is @isaasung and has over 600,000 followers on the platform, shared her own video addressing what has happened.

Isa had previously commented on one of Karla’s videos, saying that she was sorry about what had happened and that she was embarrassed. The comment read in part, “Please know I’m genuinely on your side, and I’ll be having a serious conversation with my dad.”

In the TikTok video which followed up on this comment, Isa said, “Nobody deserves to be treated this way.” She continued, “Hearing him use me, as his daughter, to belittle another person, was a complete shock to me,” she said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve felt hurt by his actions and how he has treated people,” she said, in reference to her father. That video has been viewed over 4 million times as of reporting.

Both Luke Sung and Kis Café have now shared statements about the fallout, which were shared to the Kis Café Instagram page. Sung has no social media profiles.

Newsweek has reached out to Karla and Isa via email for comment, and to Kis Café via social media message, outside of regular working hours.

What People Are Saying

Luke Sung, in a statement shared on Kis Café’s Instagram: “Karla – I am truly sorry for my actions towards you. I was condescending, hurtful, and intimidating. You did not deserve to be made to feel less than or unimportant, nobody does… I’ve decided it’s time for me to step away from Kis café permanently and in all capacities.”

Kis Café, in a statement shared to their Instagram: “Our chef’s behavior was unacceptable and he is no longer part of the team as a co-owner, a chef or in any other way.”