Elle Groves and Annie Knight, two Australian influencers, are facing some heat after a restaurant owners response to their request went viral.
Groves and Knight co-run a food account called Two Teaspooons on Instagram. The girls create content by, quote, “Wining and dining our way across Australia.”
Apparently, Groves reached out to a restaurant on Instagram asking if they would be willing to collaborate. Meaning that they would receive free food in exchange for the girls posting about their experience on the various accounts.
Grove asked, “Would you guys be interested in doing this collab? If not, we completely understand.”
Groves and Knight each have more than 5,000 followers, and Two Teaspooons has over 2,600 followers.
The restaurant owner, Luke Bresnan’s response is priceless, he wrote, “Apologies for the delay. I’ve been grappling with how much rage to demonstrate/throw in your direction.”
“Reaching out blind to a venue you know nothing about looking for free stuff is s***** enough thing to do at the best of times,” he continued, “but it’s even worse when COVID is still very much a thing, affecting small businesses like us devastatingly for two years now.”
His response went on to say, “Maybe give it a year or so and see how the business landscape looks and see if you can amass enough followers for your ‘collabs’ to actually be of benefit to the venues you approach so naively, instead of them being only of benefit to you.”
In an interview with Good Food, Bresnan explained that his resturant Little Andorra, has gone through a lot of change and difficulties due to the pandameic.
Groves and Knight responded and told The Daily Mail Australia that their page is used to “create awareness for small cafes and businesses.”
They went on to say, “We have never asked companies for free food, it is always left open to them to what they want to offer. We have dined at 99% of restaurants featured on our page paying full price.”
This story hits right at home with a popular theme on Australian social media called, #couscousforcomment, where influencers are chastised for asking for free meals in exchange for Instagram promotions.
