Influencer Banned From Open Buffet Restaurant For Eating Too Much Food

Nov 23, 2021 by apost team

All-you-can-eat restaurants operate on the premise that customers can eat as much as they want of a specified dish or buffet, with the understanding that they will eventually become full enough to stop eating on their own. But one loophole is people who can eat large amounts of food, as there is really no judging when they will stop eating.

An all-you-can-eat BBQ restaurant in China has recently had to deal with such a problem when they banned a live-eating influencer from their establishment. The customer, known only as Mr. Kang, revealed to Hanan TV that he was banned from eating at Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet in Changsha after a series of eating binges. 

On his first visit, he ate 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) of pork trotters, while during another visit he finished off 3.5 - 4 kg (7.7 - 8.8 lb) of prawns. He told the news outlet, as reported by the BBC, "I can eat a lot — is that a fault?" He also said the restaurant was being "discriminatory" against people who can eat a large amount and said that he didn't waste any food. 

Regardless, the owner of the restaurant said that Mr. Kang was hurting his business revenue. He said, "Every time he comes here, I lose a few hundred yuan." He added:

"Even when he drinks soy milk, he can drink 20 or 30 bottles. When he eats the pork trotters, he consumes the whole tray of them. And for prawns, usually people use tongs to pick them up, he uses a tray to take them all."

The story has made a big impact on Chinese social media. After it was shared on the social media platform Weibo it was viewed over 360 million times and had tens of thousands of opinions. Thoughts on the story vary and some people believe the restaurant should not be all-you-can-eat if they can't afford to be, while other people feel bad for the owner of Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet. The owner has said he is also going to ban all live-streamers from eating at the restaurant. 

Food live-streaming has become incredibly popular in the last decade. The Korean term "mukbang" denotes an online eating broadcast in which people eat large amounts of food in front of a digital audience. Users who garner large followings for doing mukbang videos can generate a lot of income from sponsorships. The trend has risen in popularity since 2010 and has spread all over the world, but particularly in Asia and North America. It has also received criticism for unhealthy eating habits and food waste.

The Chinese government began to crack down on eating influencers last year and in the future, such videos might be banned altogether. The BBC reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping asked citizens to "fight against food waste" while there are rising concerns about food shortages in the country.

In April of this year, China's corruption watchdog Central Commission for Discipline Inspection even got involved, when it called on video-sharing platforms to take action against mukbang videos that promote eating and drinking excessively as it encouraged food waste.

apost.com

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