On May 4, a TikTok food critic named Trayvon Marquise Turner walked into a steakhouse in Florence, South Carolina, ordered baby back ribs, and started filming. He weighs 100-something pounds, posts under the name Ben A Critic, and has a following in the high six figures across TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. He came to write what he calls a food review.
Within minutes of Turner entering, the manager asked him to come to the front door. The owner followed. They told him no filming. Within fifteen seconds, they had called police. Turner said he would have stopped if asked. The video shows the owner pushing up against him. Turner posted the footage that night. Within days, the video had crossed one million views.
By Friday, Percy and Willie’s was a different business. Negative Google reviews were being scrubbed. The Yelp page was suspended. The phones were disconnected. The restaurant, a Florence institution for decades that had reopened on April 17 after nearly five years closed, looked like it might not survive a second time.
The model
What the viral footage doesn’t show is that this is what Turner does.
His videos build their audience on confrontation. He spits food out on camera. He insults waitstaff to their faces. He records voiceovers belittling customers about their weight, their baldness, what they’re wearing. In the Percy and Willie’s video, he calls the owner “Humpty Dumpty” and “Easter egg head” on his way out. He ends many reviews with the phrase “no tip.” He calls himself “a foodie, rapper, and comedian.” The confrontation is the content.
The Percy and Willie’s incident is what happens when a restaurant decides not to let him do all of it.
How this job is supposed to work
There is a different version of this job. It is the breakout business story of the past three years.
Keith Lee, a former MMA fighter from Las Vegas, started posting TikToks in 2020 to work on his public-speaking anxiety. He moved to restaurant reviews the following year. His family members place the takeout orders for him, so restaurants don’t know when he’s coming. He rates food on a scale of one to ten. He has left $4,000-plus tips. He turned down a near-million-dollar endorsement deal from a major fast-food chain because, he said, he didn’t eat the food. He has reportedly given $300,000 to small businesses in a single year. Forbes put him on its 30 Under 30 list in 2024. TIME named him to its 2025 TIME100 Creators List. The Hollywood Reporter put him on its Most Influential Creators list. TikTok named him its inaugural Creator of the Year. Today he has 17 million followers, and the restaurant industry has named a phenomenon after him: the Keith Lee Effect, the surge of customers that follows a positive review.
The Puddery, a tiny pudding storefront in Las Vegas, had five customers the day Lee visited. By the end of that week, the storefront was serving more than 130 customers a day. It hasn’t slowed since. Soul Prime Chicago, four months old and struggling to pay its staff, survived because Lee posted.
That is the Keith Lee model. It rewards small, independent, often Black-owned restaurants. Ben A Critic’s model rewards confrontation. The genre is the same. The values are inverted.
Florence
The people paying for the difference are the staff at Percy and Willie’s.
The video also documents an encounter mishandled on the owner’s end. Less than fifteen seconds into the conversation, the manager was calling police. On the call, the owner can be heard telling police, “He’s already assaulted me. Right in my face.” The video shows no assault took place. After Turner left the building, the owner followed him outside and blocked his car.
The race-discrimination framing took hold within hours. Turner’s own footage tells a different story. Black customers at other tables are eating, drinking, unbothered. One yells “I still love you” as he’s led out. No primary footage has surfaced of anyone calling Turner a slur, despite widespread claims online that one was used.
A Florence-area substack, the Carolina Courier, published a letter from a local resident arguing the racial framing was wrong. The substack reached a regional audience. Atlanta Black Star reached a national one. The mob moved faster than the correction could.
But the algorithm doesn’t wait for evidence. Within three days, Atlanta Black Star ran the story under the headline “They All Had Pocket Knives,” quoting Turner’s claim that the men surrounding him were armed. Supporters mobilized within hours. They began calling Percy and Willie’s and placing orders no one would pick up. By the end of the week, the restaurant had pulled its phones.
Three weeks
The restaurant survived nearly five years closed. It reopened on April 17. Seventeen days later, Turner walked in. By May 8, its phones were off.
The State and Atlanta Black Star both reported failed attempts to reach the restaurant for comment. The harassment has not stopped.
Ben A Critic’s video is still playing. His follower count is still climbing. The fake orders are still coming in. Percy and Willie’s still hasn’t picked up the phone.