![]()
It’s an unseasonably warm Wednesday morning in March and New York’s Happy Bones Coffee is awash in natural light. Accordingly, across the tiny marble table, Patrick Janelle—best known as @aguynamedpatrick to his 443,000 followers on Instagram—is taking a picture of his cortado. It’s the most graceful brandishing of an iPhone I’ve ever seen. There’s no kneeling on his seat to get the aerial shot, or clumsily switching from landscape to portrait mode. Just a swift, silent snap. That’s because, at a time when everyone is an amateur foodstagammer, Janelle, his face dusted with blonde scruff, wearing a grey suede moto jacket, skinny jeans, and well-worn Stan Smiths—is a professional.
His skill: making you want what he’s having. His (unofficial) title: Influencer, the much-used, vaguely icky term for social media wunderkinds parlaying their fabulous feeds into new media empires in fashion, art, and increasingly, food. Fashion influencers sit front-row at Fashion Month and strike paid partnership deals with designers and retailers to post about their outfits and handbags; foodie influencers like Janelle are often invited and sometimes paid by restaurants, bars, and food and liquor brands to eat (complimentary) juicy burgers or drink crisp cucumber gimlets, and share them with their massive followings on Instagram. “You can think of me as my own magazine,” Janelle told me. His followers could fill Madison Square Garden 22 times. That’s a lot of people suddenly salivating for Doughnut Plant.
In honor of a visit from @jeffreydgerson, @amyvirginia and I decided it was donut day at the @springstreetsocialsociety office, so I brought a dozen of my faves from @doughnutplant.
A photo posted by Patrick Janelle (@aguynamedpatrick) on Feb 23, 2016 at 3:15pm PST
Influencers are a direct line to the coveted millennial audience, and there’s no prize greater for the food-loving crowd than the coveted shot of a rainbow bagel, or a geotag from the latest hard-to-get-into restaurants and bars. “I once flew to Chicago to go to a tiki bar,” Emily Arden Wells, founder of the cocktail blog Gastronomista and an influencer in her own right, told me. “They were doing these really cool GIFs with bendy straws.”
More from last nights Tiki Crawl, pt 1: Bunny's Banana Daiquiri (w/ Banana Dolphin), Bikinis After Dark, Saturn, and the Jet Pilot! w/ @boozist @therealboozist #GastronomistaTikiTear2015
A photo posted by Emily Arden Wells (@xxgastronomista) on Aug 8, 2015 at 3:05pm PDT
Wells wasn’t paid for that trip to Chicago’s Lost Lake, a wonderland of tropical drinks with tiny, begging-to-be-grammed tiny umbrellas, but some of the most beautiful feeds in the foodie space are far more than #foodporn; they’re flourishing businesses. Janelle is here at Happy Bones for his love of the cortados, but the 34-year-old former freelance digital designer who left his job two years ago (disclosure: he previously worked for Bon Appetit’s tablet edition) now says his Instagram feed is his “main mode of economic activity.” His clients have included Moët Champagne, Sweetgreen, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Stella Artois, which last year paid Janelle for an Instagram tied to the brand’s #HowIHost campaign. “Give hand-written cards to guests, prompting them to get into the spirit of the party,” he captioned an aerial gram of calligraphied cards encouraging guests to “kiss the cook” or “get a phone number,” splayed casually beside a Stella. It garnered 5,478 likes.
Influencers can, and often do, “make” restaurants. A wave of Instagram posts about the milkshakes at Black Tap Burgers in New York’s Soho, heaping all-you-can-eat candy stores in a glass, led to a mouth-watering Buzzfeed story with more than 2 million views, hours-long lines, and a feature on ABC’s The Chew.
“The popularity of that restaurant is solely based off of Instagram,” said Natalie Landsberg, 19, founder, with her friends, Gillian Presto, 19, and Emily Morse, 20, of the foodie Instagram @new_fork_city. They started the handle three years ago as #eeeeats-obsessed high schoolers; they’re now in college and have 602,000 followers ogling their comfort food-heavy content, including macaron donuts at Jacques Torres and churro ice cream sandwiches from New York’s Playa Betty’s.
This can't be real life… Vanilla ice cream in CHURRO cones are now a thing. Someone pass me some paper towels… I need to cool down🍴 Credit: @mikejchau #newforkcity
A photo posted by New Fork City℠ (@new_fork_city) on Mar 29, 2016 at 6:07pm PDT
Last summer, Morse posted a cinnamon bun from Ye Olde Bakery in Southampton, N.Y. The next day, “they were sold out by 10 in the morning,” she said. “They’d never experienced anything like it.”
The downside of playing the influencer game: doing business with that coveted millennial audience, including some influencers who, drunk on followers (and electric blue cocktails) are acting like the culinary Brat Pack. According to one publicist, they’ve demanded not only the complimentary meals and plus-one’s customarily offered to critics and some reporters and editors who cover food and beverage, but a free buffet of every dish on a restaurant’s menu, and plus-two’s and three’s—and sometimes eight’s. The publicist added, “I get emails: ‘I have 114.3K followers. Here’s where I’d like to go.’”
Some influencers “are just trying to get as much out of it as they can,” said Emily Dickens, the director of sales, marketing, and promotion at 50 Eggs, the culinary and hospitality firm behind Miami, Las Vegas, and Tokyo’s Yardbird, the 40th most-Instagrammed-from restaurant in the U.S., according to a list provided by the app. Dickens has invited influencers to Yardbird and the opening of its fast casual hatchling, Spring Chicken, calling them an “easy marketing tool”—“you meet these people in person and they may be in high school,” she said, “but they have 700,000 followers.”
Dickens says she draws a “hard line,” comp’ing dinners for an influencer and a guest or two, max, in hopes of an eye-popping Instagram. But when 50 Eggs is opening new restaurants, “that’s where it gets a little bit more complicated,” she noted. “You really need that influencer crowd to come in. It’s kind of sad if they take advantage of the system.”
So in 💖 with these chicken biscuits from @ybsouthern + so in 💖 with @tastingtable's new app Dine for showin' us all the dope places to eat in #Miami during #artbasel! #dinebytt
A photo posted by Grilled Cheese Social (@grilledcheesesocial) on Dec 5, 2015 at 9:56am PST
Many restaurants don’t pay influencers (on top of free food and drink), but the boundaries are clearer when they do—Janelle and his paid partners discuss deals down to the number of posts; by all accounts, his reputation is solid and professional. “It comes down to age and experience,” he said. “I’m not a 21-year-old navigating things for the first time.”
This suede jacket from @poloralphlauren and @saks_mens completes the perfect spring look for my fave weekend activity: morning paper and a croissant at @lafayette380. #saksstyle
A photo posted by Patrick Janelle (@aguynamedpatrick) on Mar 13, 2016 at 8:52am PDT
But things can get messy when payment isn’t changing hands, and restaurants and other brands are bartering free meals for Instagram posts. “I know people who, literally, haven’t paid for food in months,” Jackie Gebel, the 26-year-old freelance social media editor-turned-influencer behind the Instagram feed @noleftovers, which boasts 138,000 followers, told me by phone.
Gebel says it’s generally agreed upon that restaurants that invite her to come in will provide complimentary meals in exchange for an Instagram post (provided she likes what she tastes; she and many other influencers don’t traffic in negative ‘grams). She says she always leaves gratuity.
“My parents think it’s absolutely crazy that I eat like a king like this at 26,” she said. “I’m eating, like, caviar and lobster every night. It’s awesome. It’s really crazy. I know how insane that is.”
I'm a classic man; Callin' on me like a young OG; Yeah baby I'm a classic, man.🍔 The Classic Burger: two patties layered in housemade cheese, secret special sauce and pickles on a sesame potato bun. @SalvationBurger #NoLeftovers
A photo posted by No Leftovers Food & Travel (@noleftovers_) on Mar 18, 2016 at 4:04am PDT
By her estimation, Wells has “clocked 100,000 miles” in the last year attending “booze junkets” funded by liquor companies. She spent St. Patrick’s Day touring the Jameson distillery in Ireland, has jetted to Italy to learn about negroni “spritz culture” courtesy of Luxardo, and was flown to Paris for Martell cognac’s 300th anniversary celebration (it included a black-tie ball “in the vault of Versailles” and an airforce flyover.) Wells blogged and Instagrammed the events, and reported on the latter for Town & Country. The Italian adventure led to a paid partnership with Luxardo, through which Wells is creating video content the brand will use for PR purposes.
Along the way, she’s encountered a few jaded influencers. “I think people get tired. You’re always on the brand’s agenda…you’re in this amazing place and you’re not able to do your own thing. That can be hard for some people, understandably,” she said.
Restaurants and bars are increasingly giving influencers a seat at the industry table, reaching out to them alongside critics and traditional media, even hosting events especially for them, something that “never would have happened, even two years ago,” according to Jetty-Jane Connor, an associate vice-president of marketing, branding and public relations at The Door, the New York-based PR-firm whose clients include the highly-Instagrammable Black Seed Bagels, Melt Shop, and Sprinkles cupcakes.
Connor recently planned an “Instagrammer brunch” for 12 to promote a client’s new brunch service: It was planned on the weekend since many influencers still hold day jobs, and Connor thought about: “What table are you going to put them at so that they get the best lighting? What are our most photo-worthy dishes on that menu?” Even, she laughs, “Can we put an egg on it?”
nice to finally meet you @blackseedbagels🙌🏽
A photo posted by Lex (@restoring_radiance) on Apr 2, 2016 at 9:29am PDT
The invitees all had sizable followings, but the guest list was a numbers game: She wanted people with enough followers to be influential, but “they have to be under a certain threshold before they start charging you for their presence.” That limit is anywhere from 10,0000 to 40,000 followers, she estimates. (The Door does not pay influencers for posts but they do cover their meals).
Gebel of @NoLeftovers shudders at firms who offer to pay her to post glaring promo codes or graphics on Insta, as opposed to those who suggest more organic partnerships (full disclosure: she recently worked with a food site on a sponsored post about burgers; Bon Appétit’s marketing department has done similar things in the past, too). Another peeve: “When a restaurant will just try to get me in to come and take a food-porny picture…I don’t want to go to a restaurant that sounds like a boozy brunch with, like, chicken-fried waffle sandwiches. I’m a real person that likes to eat real food.” (Though comfort food is reliable “like” bait, Gebel sprinkles her feed with shots of healthier fare, like frozen yogurt on the beach and the de facto influencer grain bowls, as seen atop the rosé-colored tables at New York’s Cafe Henrie, in an effort to be authentic with her followers: “They know I’m not just eating pizza and burgers all day.”)
Gebel will know better when reaching out to influencers herself; she recently joined New York’s Becca PR (whose clients include New York’s Polo Bar, Spotted Pig, and Le Bernardin) in an as-yet-untitled role working on social media initiatives. The Door, too, has added a social media department, as it becomes a larger priority for restaurants and other brands. “If a restaurant doesn’t have Instagram… it weirds me out,” Gebel said.
A favorable New York Times review remains the holy grail for putting a restaurant on the map—even Janelle concedes, smiling, that “a Times review still probably has more value than I do”—but for how long? Connor points out that social media coverage can sometimes feel “more honest” than a traditional media story: She can track the likes and comments on an Instagram post about one of her clients in real time, a refreshing change from wondering how widely-read a print or web article may be.
The impact of influencers only appears to go deeper: Instagrammability is now being considered from a new restaurant’s blueprint stage according to Wells, who is the co-owner of architecture firm Move Matter, and recently completed Greek Eats in New York: “One of the things we talked about were, ‘What are going to be the Instagram moments? What services the table so people want to take photos of their food on it? How do we light this table correctly so it’s not in the dark and your food doesn’t look like a blob?’”
“They ended up going with marble tables,” she recalled. “They understood the importance of it.”
Related: The 10 Commandments of Taking Instagram Food Pics
See More
Share this:
