TikToker says San Francisco restaurant rejected her, mocked her 15K followers and called it ‘too little.’ Then the restaurant shut down

A San Francisco wine bar went from being a highly anticipated new restaurant to shutting down just three months after opening, following a viral confrontation between its chef and a local content creator.

The controversy began when Bay Area creator Karla Marcotte, who posts under the handle @itskarlabb, arrived at Kis Cafe in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley for a pre-arranged media tasting and content creation session.

Marcotte had reportedly coordinated the visit with a staff member over Instagram about a week earlier and expected a routine professional collaboration.

Instead, things quickly took a turn

According to Marcotte’s emotional, five-minute account, a man later identified as executive chef and co-owner Luke Sung began loudly questioning why she was at the restaurant within earshot of her table.

Sung allegedly played Marcotte’s videos at full volume inside the dining room while questioning her knowledge of food and the restaurant industry. He also reportedly pointed out that his own daughter had 600,000 followers, seemingly comparing her platform to Marcotte’s.

Marcotte said she was left humiliated and in tears. She canceled the collaboration and walked out of the restaurant.

When Marcotte shared her experience on TikTok, she initially left out the name of the restaurant. Instead, she focused on the experience and encouraged other creators to stand up for themselves when dealing with people who try to belittle them.

That did not stop the internet from figuring out where the incident allegedly took place.

Online sleuths reportedly used details from Marcotte’s video to identify Kis Cafe, and the restaurant soon found itself at the center of a wave of online backlash.

The restaurant’s digital presence was hit with thousands of one-star reviews across multiple platforms. Marcotte also saw her own following explode, going from around 15,000 followers to roughly 490,000.

The backlash eventually forced Kis Cafe to respond.

Within 36 hours of Marcotte’s video going viral, the restaurant issued a statement on Instagram confirming that Sung had been removed from the business as both a co-owner and chef. The restaurant described his behavior as “unacceptable.”

Sung later released his own statement, taking responsibility for what happened and describing his behavior as “condescending, hurtful, and intimidating.”

He also acknowledged the impact his actions had on the restaurant’s staff, saying that his actions had disrupted the livelihoods of employees who had nothing to do with the incident.

Removing Sung from the restaurant was not enough to save Kis Cafe

As reported by SFGATE, the intense backlash and boycott eventually contributed to the restaurant’s permanent closure just three months after its grand opening. Co-owner Eric Lin said the space would eventually undergo a complete structural overhaul while efforts were made to protect the jobs of the remaining staff.

The incident is another example of how quickly a restaurant controversy can spread in the age of TikTok. A complaint that might once have stayed between a customer and a restaurant can now reach hundreds of thousands of people within hours.

Ultimately, for legacy restaurateurs who cut their teeth in strict, pre-Yelp kitchens, the modern hospitality landscape can be a difficult adjustment. A creator with 15,000 followers can hold the kind of leverage that even Michelin reviewers didn’t always have. In this era, respect for everyone is always the most critical item on any menu.