Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

Interview

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, restaurants around the world are struggling to survive. Many eateries have had to close, some have adopted a takeout model, while others have started selling groceries just to keep their workers. Business Insider has stated that 1 in 5 restaurants in the US could permanently shutter because of the pandemic.

But there’s nothing sacred when it comes to influencers. It turns out, coronavirus doesn’t stop them from wanting a fine dining experience. Free of charge, of course. And the Aussie food critic John Lethlean isn’t buying it. He has been exposing the scroungers in a series of Instagram posts captioned with “#couscousforcomment” for a while now. John has now got a fan base of 20.9K followers on his Instagram account. And no freebie-craving influencer is safe from his radar!

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John has been exposing the influencers who still ask for free food in return for a “review” amid the current crisis

Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

Image credits: johnlethlean

This blogger thought a free b-day brunch menu for his posts would be an excellent transaction

Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

Image credits: johnlethlean

The wine merchants looked far from impressed by the deal

Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

Image credits: johnlethlean

This foodie has his own idea of collaboration in mind

Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

Image credits: johnlethlean

Bored Panda contacted John Lethlean, Australia’s only national restaurant critic, and asked him to share his opinion on such non-exemplary behavior. And John wasn’t sugarcoating the situation: “As a restaurant reviewer with 23 years experience, the notion that these people ‘review’ makes me sick.”

According to John, there are plenty of people in the café and restaurant spaces who are extremely ignorant of how things operate. “They are susceptible to bluff and bravado. I can see how those who are marginal from a profit perspective might believe this is a reasonable quid pro quo.”

Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

In fact, some restaurant runners “are not in a position to analyze the impact of this so-called ‘influence’ and they don’t think about what it may or may not do to their brands.”

With that aside, up until the coronavirus outbreak, the Australian restaurant industry was doing “good.” John commented: “It was fiercely competitive, oversupplied with providers but too expensive, partly attributable to Australia’s employment laws and penalty rates.”

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Restaurants Are Struggling Yet These Influencers Are Still Asking For Free Food And This Food Critic Shames Them

Liucija Adomaite is a creative mind with years of experience in copywriting. She has a dynamic set of experiences from advertising, academia, and journalism. This time, she has set out on a journey to investigate the ways in which we communicate ideas on a large scale. Her current mission is to find a magic formula for how to make ideas, news, and other such things spread like a virus.

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I'm the Visual Editor at Bored Panda, responsible for ensuring that everything our audience sees is top-notch and well-researched. What I love most about my job? Discovering new things about the world and immersing myself in exceptional photography and art.

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