A San Francisco restaurant has shuttered its doors following a viral controversy sparked by a TikTok influencer who claimed she was humiliated and dismissed for lacking a large enough online following.
Karla, a food content creator known on TikTok as @itskarlabb, shared an emotional video on July 23 detailing a collaboration gone wrong with Kis Cafe, which had only opened in May. Her video — now seen more than 21 million times — described an experience that left her in tears and sparked a wave of backlash online.
In her post, Karla recounted arriving early at the Hayes Valley café to shoot footage for a planned collaboration. She said she was welcomed by a staffer who had arranged the partnership. But soon after she sat down, she overheard a man — later identified as co-owner and chef Luke Sung — questioning who she was and how many followers she had.
“He pulled up my TikTok, saw that I had 15,000 followers, and said that was too few,” Karla recalled. “Then he said he didn’t think my videos were at the level he wanted representing his restaurant.”
She said Sung criticized her audience, insinuating they wouldn’t be able to afford dining there. He also reportedly asked her, “Not to be snobby, but do you know who I am?” before stating that he was a James Beard Award finalist and that his daughter had 600,000 TikTok followers.
Embarrassed and shaken, Karla walked out and ended the collaboration. “I want to advocate for microinfluencers, especially in the Bay Area food scene,” she said in her video. “You don’t need a million followers to make a difference.”
Though she didn’t name the restaurant or Sung, internet sleuths quickly identified both. The fallout was immediate: Kis Cafe and Sung’s other restaurant, Isa, were flooded with negative reviews and online criticism.
On July 24, Kis Cafe issued a statement condemning Sung’s behavior as “unacceptable.” The cafe announced he was no longer involved in any capacity and said he had reached out to Karla with a personal apology. “We failed to create a welcoming and respectful space,” the statement read. The business also said it would be temporarily closing and “restructuring.”
Speaking to NBC Bay Area the next day, another co-owner, who asked to remain anonymous due to threats, confirmed plans to reopen with a new chef: “We’ll restart differently, separate from the chef, so our staff can continue their livelihoods.”
Sung’s daughter Isa, a prominent TikTok creator herself, posted a message of support for Karla and publicly denounced her father’s actions. “It was unacceptable,” she said in a video, adding that this was not the first time she or others had been hurt by his behavior.
On July 27, Sung issued a formal apology via the Kis Cafe Instagram page. “The responsibility for this situation is mine alone,” he wrote. “My actions shouldn’t reflect on my staff or my family. They don’t deserve to suffer because of me.”
Karla, whose follower count has since surged past 387,000, thanked her supporters in a follow-up video. In a separate clip sharing a recipe for spicy chicken pasta, she added with a smile: “I’m no award-winning chef, but trust me — this pasta’s really good.”
