Group of New Yorkers accidentally opens the city’s newest hotspot
Remember The Shed in London? For a while, it was the city’s hottest hotspot and ranked number one on TripAdvisor. Everyone was desperate to eat there, there was just one little problem… The restaurant didn’t exist at all. Oobah Butler came up with this hilarious plan when he started writing for VICE; before that, he had another remarkable job: writing fake reviews (for money) on TripAdvisor.
And then he thought: how far could I take these fake reviews? Very far, as it turned out, and eventually he opened for one day — serving his guests microwave meals, which were received incredibly well. Read here how it all went down; a hilarious prank that got completely out of hand.
‘What you can do, we can do better!’
Bigger and better, they thought in New York, where a group of friends (all working in the tech industry) had the same idea. They came up with a steakhouse called Mehran’s Steak House, to honor their housemate Mehran Jalali’s amazing steak, and put the place on Google Maps. They left extremely enthusiastic reviews, and one thing led to another… Suddenly, they were open for one evening as a pop-up. For 140 people.
The New York Times and New York Post were both there, there was a marriage proposal and more than 2,400 disappointed people: the waiting list was about 2,600 people long, while there was room for ‘only’ 140 guests. There was no way that many tables would fit in Mehran’s house, so they rented a former bathhouse on East 11th Street.
And now for the best part: the 140 chosen ones didn’t know that it was an out-of-control prank when they showed up. Because of the positive Google reviews, so many people tried to make a reservation—which of course wasn’t possible—and were told they could join the waiting list for this one evening. A menu that would cost them 114 dollars, and they were literally lining up for it.
Getting your picture taken with Albert Einstein
Upon entering, guests were greeted by photos of Jalali with celebrities such as Albert Einstein, whom he had photoshopped himself into. The evening’s menu was called ‘the Bovine Circle of Life’ and if you were hoping for a good glass of wine, you were in for a disappointment: the young servers only served milk. Uh, okaaaay…
As the evening progressed, the guests increasingly realized that it was all one big joke, and many of them appreciated it. Except for one couple, who threatened legal action because they had been made fools of. It is America, after all, where the first reaction is always to sue the other person.
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