San Francisco and the Bay Area seemed to get hit with a one-two punch of criticism this week.
Keith Lee, a major TikTok food influencer and Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase both offered up some very grim reviews of the Bay Area.
In a TikTok video released Thursday, Lee, an MMA fighter turned food reviewer, listed a few reasons why he decided to end his Bay Area food tour early.
"I actually don't believe that the Bay is for tourists right now, and that's what I was, a tourist. The people in the Bay are just focused on surviving, that's the business owners and locals,” he said. “The amount of tents and living structures and burnt up cars that we saw people living in was shocking to say the least."
Lee also stated in his video, blasted out to an estimated 15 million followers, that he was rushed to a hospital after suffering an allergic reaction from one of his meals. He added the food he tried didn't live up to the hype, but he did praise three Oakland restaurants.
Meanwhile, Dimon also offered up some harsh words after visiting San Francisco for the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference earlier this week.
"San Francisco is in far worse shape than New York,” he said. "What is it that makes an attractive city? It's parks, it's art but it's definitely safety. It's jobs, it's job creation. It's the ability to have all those things, so it's not just one thing. But any city that doesn't do a good job, it will lose its population."
San Francisco Mayor London Breed responded to both critics during the opening of a new Chinese Cultural Center in Chinatown Friday.
Breed said that she agrees with some of Dimon's comments that the city has been too dependent on just the tech industry over the last couple decades. She added she's been pushing to change that and pushing for law enforcement improvements, including the soon to be installed network of 400 license plate reading cameras in the city.
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Breed said that some of Dimon's comments may not tell the whole story of his company's time in the city.
“What I am hearing and the conversations with JPMorgan Chase is, number one, we are coming back to San Francisco next year,” she said. “Number two, we had more people at this conference this year than even last year."
In Oakland on Friday, there was an event calling for the recall of Mayor Sheng Thao. Derrick Johnson, a local restaurant owner didn't mince words as he mentioned the latest TikTok from Keith Lee.
"Our businesses are dying. They're not dying because we have a bad product or bad service. They're dying because people don't want to come to Oakland,” he said.
In a statement, Thao said in part that she “is fighting for a safer, more affordable and more prosperous Oakland.”
On late Friday night, Lee posted a TikTok video, saying his statements about the Bay Area were misunderstood.
“We didn't leave because of violence and at one point, did we feel threatened or scared. We didn't get ran out of nowhere," he said. "But I never once said that the entire trip to the Bay as a fail or disappointment. Now, I appreciate if these blogs and these media will stop saying I did."
Lee went on to say that his food tour is in its beginning stages and he is still trying to figure out what works in different cities.
