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Raina Huang is a competitive eater from Los Angeles, and also a YouTube influencer known as 'Raina is Crazy'.
One day, she visited StevO's Pizza & Ribs in Aurora, Colorado, U.S., in order to film herself beating the restaurant’s eating challenge for her YouTube channel. Called the 'OMG 28', contestants need to eat a 28-inch pizza within just an hour, in one sitting.
The winner can walk away with a full stomach, a no bill, a $100 prize, and in Huang's case, also an internet fame.
But the restaurant's owner, Steve Wieand, wasn’t buying it.
He accused Huang of being a professional competitor and a scammer. He kicked her out of the restaurant, while swearing.
It all began when Huang requested the pizza challenge, and asked the owner of the restaurant if she can film it.
Knowing that eating a 28-inch pizza is no easy feat, Wieand who saw Huang asked her whether she’s a professional eater. As found on a surveillance video at the restaurant, she can be seen answering that she has done a few food challenges in the past, and has recorded some of them for YouTube.
This was when the owner started accusing Huang of trying to scam his business.
He began calling her "explicit names," and kicked her out of the restaurant.
It should be noted that there are no rules or regulations that say certain people - including competitive eaters - cannot participate in the challenge.
Huang later posted a video showing herself crying.
She said that she wanted to share her story because she felt that she was treated unfairly, and wanted other people to know what happened to her.
“I just want him to have more respect for his customers, towards other people in general,” Huang said.
“I’ve never had a restaurant experience this bad,” Huang said. “I was just here to do a pizza challenge. I don’t understand.”
While she did admit that she had in the past participated in a number of food challenges and won many of them, Huang doesn’t consider herself a professional competitor since she has never participated in eating contests. She describes her YouTube channel as more like Man v. Food, in which she travels to take on various eating challenges.
Regarding Wieand the restaurant owner, his daughter, Stephanie Wieand, works at the restaurant and didn’t support her father's behavior.
“I think that it could have been handled better,” Stephanie said. “All I want to say is that I apologize to Raina and to everyone.”
She also said that her father “definitely feels bad,” but suggested that her father felt like Huang downplayed her history with food challenges and lied about them.
Because of her father, Stephanie is also facing personal backlash.
She said that she "had to log off TikTok yesterday because people were bullying me and calling me very bad names."
Following the case, and Huang's reaction video, a number of other restaurant owners have been calling her, hoping for Huang to take their food challenges instead. And patrons as well as some internet users, started giving one-star review to the restaurant, before the reviews were shut off.