« Would you be interested in a collaboration? » I read the Instagram message and immediately saw what the influencer was offering: a free meal for two at our ramen and sushi restaurant in Manchester in exchange for an Instagram story and post.
I wasn’t expecting the message, and there had been no previous collaboration or established partnership between us. The proposal was presented as a « win-win » exchange, a phrase I knew was familiar in the influencer world, but it didn’t fit the way we operate.
Our restaurant is built around welcoming paying customers, and requests like this are something restaurateurs regularly encounter. According to industry professionals, establishments can receive these kinds of solicitations several times a week. For us, the particular request felt too advantageous for the content creator and poorly suited to our operations.
So we decided to respond directly.
I made it clear, in a deliberately provocative and ironic way, that we preferred paying customers to promises of increased visibility. We then decided to make the Instagram conversation public, and that decision quickly changed the situation from a private exchange into something much larger.
The post spread rapidly, attracting attention far beyond our restaurant. What had started as one unexpected request for a free meal became a discussion about influencers, restaurants, promotional work, and the value of online visibility.
The influencer did not simply let the matter go. She sent another message after seeing that the exchange had been published, and her tone was considerably more aggressive.
She objected to our decision to make the conversation public and argued that we had overstepped our bounds. At the same time, she maintained that she brought « positive energy » and was offering free promotional work through her social media.
Her response only added fuel to the controversy.
We answered again, this time with humor. We posted a sarcastic response that echoed the tone of the exchange, jokingly offering extravagant gifts and a completely improbable collaboration. The deliberately exaggerated response pushed the story even further across social media.
At the center of the disagreement was still the original idea: a free meal for two in return for an Instagram story and post. For the influencer, it was presented as a mutually beneficial arrangement. For us, it did not align with the way we run the restaurant.
And as more people saw the messages, the question became bigger than whether we should have accepted one free meal.
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