Battered, broken and out of pancakes: When London food queues go wild

What going viral is really like for the capital's eateries

Morning — a randomer rocks up to your restaurant, asking if they can film themselves eating at a table and then capture the chefs in action. You don’t think much of it — until later, when you open for service and discover dozens of hungry people queuing round the corner.

For London’s smaller eateries, a visit from a food influencer is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, business booms — provided your limited staff and kitchen can keep up. “Obliterated, battered, broken,” is how one restauranteur recounts their brush with virality, managing dwindling supplies and annoyed neighbours.

Today for the Spy, writer Lucy Carter explores how social media is fuelling a new kind of queuing culture that’s shaping London’s food scene, for better and for worse. She speaks to restaurant and cafe owners about their exhilarating and exhausting moments in the TikTok limelight — and asks what can be done to smooth the ride.

When London food queues go wild is below.

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The madness of London queue culture

By Lucy Carter

Food blogger EatingWithTodd at Burnt Smokehouse

“I hadn’t even heard of him,” admits Sufia, co-founder of east London’s Burnt Smokehouse. But when EatingWithTod asked to film a video in the restaurant, she was happy to oblige. While it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, “it just went completely viral. And that’s when the queues just...” Sufia shakes her head, recalling the video’s impact. “That was intense.”

The Burnt team are no strangers to queues. From a railway arch in Leyton, the smokehouse serves up brisket and other barbecue mainstays Texas-style, paying homage to an eating culture with queuing in its DNA. There’s no booking system — Burnt’s punters turn up and get in line. “Our chef tells us lots of stories — he lived [in Texas] for two to three years — and a lot of the barbeque joints are only open two or three days a week,” Sufia tells me. “People will come from all over, travelling five hours to get there. And people will queue! That’s how you do it; you queue up, you wait in line until you get to the front.” 

Even so, Burnt hadn’t anticipated the sudden increase in demand the restaurant would see so soon after its launch. Food critic Jay Rayner visited just three weeks after opening in 2023, and his review in the Guardian started to draw in the crowds. What really catalysed Burnt’s popularity, though, was a visit from EatingWithTod, aka Toby Inskip, a food blogger with more than 1.5m followers across Instagram and TikTok.