Welcome to Deep Dish, a weekly roundup of food and entertainment news. Last time we uncovered Sam Smith’s secret food Instagram.
Marketing has gotten weirder. Movies used to be promoted with, I don’t know, billboards or whatever. Now, A24 is opening up wedding chapels for the new Zendaya vehicle. Did you see the Brat credit cards? Did you get one? David, the protein bar company, is sending people vibrators—I would have killed to listen in on that marketing pitch.
Spectacle, stunt, embarrassment, and entertainment have all become enmeshed in this new, dystopian advertising landscape. That’s why I was more than a little suspicious when an oddly robotic McDonald’s CEO gingerly took a minuscule nibble of the company’s newest burger which he kept referring to as a “product.” Could this decidedly weird video somehow be some kind of 3D chess, outrage bait marketing ploy? More on that in a bit.
Also this week: Keith Lee, the influencer known for taste-testing local gems, invests in his first restaurant (and it’s not what you’d expect); RFK Jr. is coming for your Dunkin’ and, naturally, Bostonians are not thrilled; and we take a look at the free grocery store in Atlanta that may serve as a model for Mamdani’s team in New York.
The CEOs Are Being Weird Again
Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald’s, took to social media to taste the company’s new “product,” as he called it: the Big Arch. The new burger has sesame seeds and poppy seeds on the bun and…. Whatever, I don’t care. The point is this guy had potentially never eaten a burger in his life, and the tiny bite he took inspired heaps of backlash from commenters who caught on to his perceived reticence to try his own product.
It wasn’t long before other brands seized the opportunity to dunk on Chris and McDonald’s. Burger King CEO Josh Kobza took a hearty bite of a BK burger. Wendy’s got in on it. I guess the A&W CEO also jumped in too? Burgermogging around every corner. Some on the internet were quick to point out that Kempczinski’s weird video may have in fact been a marketing ploy all along. One commentator referred to it as “obviously a viral marketing psyop,” and intentional or not, that’s exactly what it turned into. —Sam Stone, staff writer
Keith Lee Enters His Restaurant Investing Era
Perhaps you know Keith Lee from TikTok, where he garnered more than 17 million followers for his front-facing videos in which he tries food from restaurants beloved by locals. His audience is so loyal that a single Keith Lee video can change the fate of an entire restaurant. Now, Lee takes on a new title: restaurant investor. He’s now an investor in Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, which has locations across the US and Canada.
In an interview, Lee assured me that investing in restaurants was not a conflict of interest as it applies to his restaurant reviews. “I will always give my honest opinion,” he says. Even if that means giving a bad review to a Brooklyn Dumpling Shop dumpling that he didn’t like? “Absolutely. Without hesitation.”
The investment is a surprising move for Lee, who focuses his content on mom-and-pop restaurants, usually with an aim of elevating them to his audience. More interesting is that Brooklyn Dumpling Shop doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to, well, deliciousness. Scores of Reddit posts decry the dumplings and other menu items—though Lee had good things to say about them, and his commenters tended to agree. The dissonance doesn’t phase him. “Everybody’s taste buds are different,” he says. “You can’t discredit somebody’s opinion because their opinion is different than yours.” —S.S.
RFK Jr. Is Coming for Dunkin’
New England is shaking right now. Since being named to the post, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made healthy eating a central pillar of his agenda, most recently unveiling an inverted food pyramid foregrounding meat proteins. The latest subject of his anti-sugar ire? Dunkin’, specifically, its sugary iced coffee. “We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks,” he said at an Austin rally. “Show us the safety data that show that it’s okay for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar in it.” God forbid women have hobbies.