New York foodies tricked by friend group turning their inside joke into fake restaurant TikTok: willyhoppsA friend group decided to turn an inside joke into an exclusive restaurant that opened for only one night, tricking New York foodies who had been waiting for over a year. The Shed at Dulwich was a 2017 hoax that saw journalist Oobah Butler set up a fake restaurant in his backyard by making it the top-rated restaurant in London on TripAdvisor. Serving \u00a31 ready-meals to ten customers, some diners said they would recommend the restaurant to others by the end of the experience. In an article for Vice, Butler wrote that the hoax demonstrated \u201cSociety\u2019s willingness to believe absolute bulls**t.\u201d And now, it has been done again \u2014 a friend group\u2019s inside joke has fooled New York foodies into waiting almost one year for an exclusive restaurant that doesn\u2019t exist. The joke began when college student Mehran Jalali began hosting biweekly steak dinners for his housemates and friends in their Upper East Side apartment in 2021. Setting up a Google page so that the group could leave reviews for each meal, \u201cMehran\u2019s Steakhouse\u201d was born. And with the caliber of comments left behind, it wasn\u2019t long before New York foodies started to take notice. \u201cNever have I tasted something so delicious and exquisite. As you take a bite, your entire being is transported to pure bliss and serenity. It\u2019s evident that the steak was cooked by the hands of god,\u201d one reviewer wrote. Another said, \u201cI am unwilling to say any more about the details of this excursion as it was a deeply emotional experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.\u201d After creating a fake website for their steakhouse, the friends decided to bring the restaurant to life for one night after their waitlist grew to nearly 3,000 names. At $114 a head, approximately 140 diners showed up at a venue the group had booked out and decorated. The unsuspecting restaurant-goers were then served by 65 of the group\u2019s friends, many of whom had zero hospitality experience. The night included a fake proposal, Drake fans, and a menu based on the lifecycle of a cow. Most diners did catch onto the hoax but nonetheless enjoyed being part of the joke. However, not everyone was impressed to see the friend group capitalizing on Butler\u2019s idea; \u201cWhat made The Shed impressive was that they did it [with] much less resources [and money]. The fact they don\u2019t acknowledge The Shed is weird.\u201d Check out all the latest entertainment news on our page here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York foodies tricked by friend group turning their inside joke into fake restaurant TikTok: willyhoppsA friend group decided to turn an inside joke into an exclusive restaurant that opened for only one night, tricking New York foodies who had been waiting for over a year. The Shed at Dulwich was a 2017 hoax that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}