Two Australian influencers have found themselves under backlash after a restaurant owner's raging response to them asking for free food went viral. “Reaching out blind to a venue you know nothing about looking for free stuff is s***** enough thing to do at the best of times,” the restaurant owner says, “but it’s even worse when COVID is still very much a thing, affecting small businesses like us devastatingly for two years now.” The reply also gave Groves some advice: “Maybe give it a year or so and see how the business landscape looks and see if you can amass enough followers for your ‘collabs’ to actually be of benefit to the venues you approach so naively, instead of them being only of benefit to you.”