Business suddenly booms at Chicago's Amici restaurant after Keith Lee review
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Keith Lee's online food reviews garner millions of views and help spotlight small, struggling restaurants around the country—his boost to those restaurants has widely become known as the Keith Lee effect.
This week, Lee, who is based in Las Vegas, made an unannounced visit to a restaurant in Chicago's Lakeview community that has been having a hard time—and the impact was immediate.
Amici is a relatively new restaurant located at 3933 N. Broadway, in a narrow storefront at the front of a blond brick building where Broadway splits off from Clarendon Avenue. Most recently, before Amici, the storefront housed Harold's Chicken—and before that, it housed an assortment of other restaurants that came and went over the years, including a Quiznos sub shop. In the 2000s, when the area had a slightly seedier vibe, a video store specializing in adult DVD rentals was located directly upstairs.
Alfio Sciacca opened Amici about ten months ago. The restaurant specializes in homemade arancini—or fried Italian rice balls—but also offers Mexican, Indian, African, and Chinese takes on the dish.
But the way things had been going, Sciacca was not sure Amici would make it a year. He said business was very slow.
So, at his daughter's direction, Sciacca posted a video to TikTok showing the mostly empty storefront. Lee was tagged and invited to try the arancini.
For his review, Lee ordered six arancini—a traditional Italian arancino, a Jerkicino with jerk chicken, an Indian Currycino Masalacino, a Mexican Birriacino, and an African Dorowattino arancino.
When Lee posts his food reviews to his more than 16 million TikTok followers, people show up within hours—and sometimes minutes—to try the food for themselves. Since Lee's visit to Amici and his favorable review on Tuesday, lines have been out the door.
People are talking about Amici, and Sciacca sold out of his now-coveted rice balls within hours of opening Thursday. He had to turn customers away empty-handed, but they were happy for him nevertheless.
"I'm surprised," Sciacca said. "I'm not accustomed to this—people giving us a high five or fist bump when you run out of food."
Te'Ana Jackson saw the Keith Lee review and wanted to try the fare at Amici for herself.
"They are actually sold out, and I'm OK with that," said Jackson. "I like to see businesses flourishing."
In an interview with CBS News, Lee explained what makes his videos different.
"So I do it for my mom. How would my mom go into a new city specifically for food and go eat food?" Lee said in the April interview on CBS Saturday Morning, "and for me, it's more or less of expanding the horizons of the locals, and businesses that have great food, great customer service—but could use marketing. That's my biggest objective in this."
And on his way out, Lee left $3,000 to cover the tab for the customers at Amici at the time—and a $1,000 tip for the restaurant.
"It's rare to find people that actually does what he does—going around the country and helping struggling families," said Sciacca.
Sciacca said that before Lee's review, Amici went through 25 to 30 arancini a day. They sold 175 on Wednesday and 190 on Thursday, which meant selling out within a couple of hours.
Lee is so recognizable that he does his food reviews anonymously by ordering from an online app and then tasting the food in his car outside the restaurant. At the end of the videos, he reveals himself—like he did at Amici when he left the generous tip.