Keith Lee and 2 Chainz disagree on what restaurant reviews should rate
Lee says everyday service matters; 2 Chainz argues celebrity guests experience—and may expect—VIP treatment.
2 Chainz performs in Orange County in 2013. File photo unrelated to the Den of Kings conversation. Photo by demxx / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0. demxx · Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic · Resized for display.
Complex’s November 2 account of a “Den of Kings” conversation puts Keith Lee and 2 Chainz on different sides of a familiar restaurant question: should a review reflect the treatment an everyday customer gets, or the VIP service a celebrity may receive?
Their Den of Kings conversation turns food criticism into a question of who the reviewer is speaking for.
Lee said he wants his reviews to represent regular diners. Complex recounts him describing how his mother-in-law struggled to get service at ten Atlanta restaurants, then saw staff respond differently after he arrived. 2 Chainz’s counter was that celebrity guests often receive special treatment and can fairly include that experience in a review.
Lee tied the responsibility to his followers’ spending: people who trust his recommendations are deciding where to take their money. The exchange is less a reported feud than a grounded disagreement about the job of a review—document the visit one person had, or help an audience anticipate its own.
