Brooklyn restaurant implements a needed "influencer ban," limiting photography and TikTok shoots

"They would just get one drink and stay for two hours"

By Michael La Corte

Deputy Food Editor

Published October 16, 2023 1:50PM (EDT)

Professional photographer, shooting food (Getty Images)
Professional photographer, shooting food (Getty Images)

If you've been peeved by aspiring influencers at local restaurants, cafes or bars incessantly snapping photos and videos, then Dae in Brooklyn just might become your new favorite spot.

As reported by Clio Chang at Curbed, Dae is a new design shop and cafe that opened in Carroll Gardens this summer that has "a meticulously curated space [with] a no-laptop policy." This, though, proved to not be enough, as "hordes of influencers armed with tripods" descended up on the shop in recent months, which has led Dae to actually ban customers from taking any photos or videos in the store — with the caveat of "quick snaps" at one's own table. On their own Instagram, the store wrote that they love the food and drink photos "but the TikToks and instagram photoshoots have gotten a bit out of control for us." Many influencers and would-be influencers have dubbed the shop as being especially "aesthetic" and minimalist in design and appeal, hence its burgeoning popularity and its draw for many social media users since its opening.

Carol Song, the co-owner, told Curbed that "people were coming in and literally doing photoshoots — they would just get one drink and stay for two hours shooting." She noted that it's a "free-for-all" and said that she didn't want the shop to be somewhere that "people just come and go for the trend." Thus far, though, the reaction hasn't been too negative, so the limitations remain in effect — for now, at least.

 


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