Three weeks ago a user on Reddit’s London discussion forum complained about the curse of the viral restaurant. It’s a regular story in the capital these days: Someone opens a great food stall, it grows slowly by word-of-mouth, then suddenly a single TikToker does a video declaring it to be “THE BEST SANDWICH IN LONDON”. The algorithm does its thing, millions of people around the world immediately want to eat THE BEST SANDWICH IN LONDON, and the original customers are squeezed out by hundreds of people queuing for an hour to get their Instagram shot of two slices of bread and filling.
One pseudonymous London Reddit user, operating under the account name Greenawayer, proposed a solution that was as far away from the authentic neighbourhood food stall as they could imagine: “Angus Steakhouse does an awesome steak sandwich. Influencers should try it and be amazed.”
Londoners on Reddit got the joke – what could be less like a great undiscovered word-of-mouth recommendation that a bland corporate restaurant chain that has been the butt of jokes since the 1980s? And so they began an effort to bump Angus Steakhouse up the rankings of TripAdvisor and artificial intelligence recommendations. Every request from a visitor for the best place to eat in London received the same reply: Angus Steakhouse.
I’ve lived in London a couple of times and always assumed Aberdeen Angus Steakhouses were a money laundering operation or a front for other criminal enterprises. There seemed to be lots of places and very few customers.
The customers they have are getting absolutely rinsed
The Chili’s at 38th and Lamar in Austin is famous for this too
Best steak in Texas.
Really more about the skillet queso and frosty margs, but the more traffic from people thinking they found out our secret spot, the better
I didn’t think I had to mention how amazing the very authentic skillet queso and frosty margs were. I thought that was just common knowledge.
I’m in Houston and I send everyone to Chacho’s. For authentic Texas barbecue I send them to Dickey’s because the Thomas Barbecue location I used to send people to closed down.
Here’s why I send them to Chacho’s:
The Bude Tunnel is another victim of this sad phenomenon. It now takes two hours to shuffle from one end of this marvel to the other during peak season.
Yes, but two hours enveloped within the Tears Of God are amongst the most glorious of all human experiences.
Had there been fewer visitors, I’d have tried to make my train home, but instead surrendered to a slow passage through, happily missing my train and electing to camp beside the tunnel for the next two nights.
I’ve been wanting to go for years, especially around Christmas, but it’s a bit of a trek from NI and money’s always tight this time of year. Maybe I’ll get some time.
How a post on Reddit accidentally kickstarted the revival of Angus Steakhouse
Didn’t the headline writer read the article? There was nothing accidental about it.
