A vegetarian restaurant on the Greek island of Kos in the Dodecanese has put its foot down when it comes to “Social Media Influencers,” people who post their activities and opinions on media for others to emulate.
According to a recent article from Greek lifestyle website, Lifo, the owner of the restaurant, who wishes to remain anonymous, regularly receives freebie requests from these “celebrities” in return for free publicity for the establishment.
Instead, he always offers these individuals the option of the restaurant donating a free meal to charity after the influencers pay for their own meal — and he has never been taken up on that proposition, not once.
Screenshots of these exchanges went viral on Reddit and social media overnight, with some posts attracting over 76,000 likes.
The requests received daily by the Greek restaurant. Source: Reddit. 
The Greek owner’s viral response to the requests.
One of them reads: “I recently heard about your restaurant from a friend of mine who mentioned you serve great Greek dishes and vegan options. Would love to come here with my friend in exchange for social media tagging.”
To which the restaurant responds: “Thank you very much, however our restaurant has a policy. We charge every influencer who wants to eat here normally, however we offer food of equal value to people in need instead.”
This, the owner tells Lifo, is the reply he has given to people over the past three years, adding that “no one has ever accepted to come under this condition” and most of the time “they don’t even reply and some even delete their original message.”
With strong support for the Greek restaurant online, only time will tell if influencers will now start to actually take him up on his offer as a means to further boost their brand and image.
