'I truly don’t believe the Bay is a place for tourists right now, and that’s what I was – a tourist,' the content creator said
Will San Francisco regain its glittering reputation?
FOX News senior correspondent Claudia Cowan reports on the rampant crime in San Francisco on ‘FOX News Sunday.’
Celebrity food critic Keith Lee canceled his culinary tour of San Francisco partway through because of its unsafe conditions and bad food, some of which he said caused him to have an allergic reaction.
Lee, who has nearly 16 million followers on TikTok and more than half a billion likes on the content he posts there, announced to his fans this week that he was cutting his trip to the Bay Area short due to some less than desirable conditions he found when he got there.
In a video posted Thursday, he stated, "Unfortunately, the Bay Area stop on the Keith Lee and Family Food Tour is officially over, prematurely."
A famous social media food critic had to cut his culinary tour of San Francisco, citing the city's poor conditions. (Jon Michael Raasch/Fox News Digital)
The popular content creator, who shares video of him reviewing food from different establishments across the country, had been preparing to take a culinary tour of the city for some time despite warnings from social media users that he should avoid it for his own safety.
Lee noted he wasn’t fazed by these warnings. In a TikTok he shared before the trip, he said, "I go where I feel like I'm supposed to go, I go by faith and not by sight, and I heard a lot of people calling the Bay Gotham City, and the way my mind works, that's even more reason for me to go."
But during his tour, Lee encountered what his fans were warning about. In his TikTok summarizing the trip, he gave several reasons for why he was ending it. He first said, "I truly don’t believe the Bay is a place for tourists right now, and that’s what I was – a tourist."
He continued, noting how the residents and business owners are "just surviving." He also cited the unsafe conditions that have become synonymous with the city in recent years: "The amount of tents and living structures and burnt up cars that we saw people living in was shocking to say the least."
CALIFORNIA CITY REMOVES HOMELESS IN BEAUTIFICATION BEFORE BIDEN'S SUMMIT WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - SEPTEMBER 02: Homeless encampment is seen on a sidewalk in San Francisco, California, United States on September 2, 2023. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
"Before we went, people were comparing it to Gotham City. I might not agree, but I understand where it’s coming from," Lee said, adding that he still felt the people there were "amazing."
Before moving onto his next reason for ending the tour, he mentioned he feels that the city government "should step in" to help those trying to survive there.
He then mentioned that this was the first food-centric city trip he ever took where he had "over six videos" which he "didn’t feel comfortable posting" because he had nothing good to say about the food.
His third and "probably most important" reason for ending the tour was that he had to go to the hospital after having an allergic reaction to one of his meals, due to an apparent exposure to shellfish.
Lee did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
