The Influence of an Influencer

How one video turned Glendale Burger Shop into an online sensation

By Karl Klockars | Feb. 15, 2025

“This is the Junction. Oh my god … this thing is phenomenal.”

Those are the words that plunged Glendale Burger Shop into weeks of frenzied burgermaking, thanks to the influencing powers of Seoung Lee and Chow Down Detroit. Hundreds of thousands of people across every social media channel watched Lee dig into a delicious looking smashburger from the front seat of his car … but after that 0:59 second clip is over, what does it mean for the restaurant that smashed said burger?

This is the story of what happened to one restaurateur—Bray McCabe, who runs Glendale with his wife Brittany—who felt the white-hot power of social media influence … and lived to tell the tale.

The Impact

It was an average August Wednesday, and business was a bit sluggish at Glendale Burger Shop thanks to the nearby Grandview Parkway construction project.

“When that video came out, we were just closing up the shop, and I saw that we got tagged. I was like, ‘Oh, sick. That’s cool,’” Bray says. “And then we started getting followers”—hundreds, almost immediately—and Bray thought, “I wonder if it’s gonna affect business. Because he’s in Detroit, and we’re up here.”

The next day? “Pretty busy.”

The day after that? “Two days in … we had done double [the business] that we did the week before. On that same day.”

That weekend? “Out in the dining room, you’re just hearing the video being played at tables. And [we were] like, ‘Oh…this is a thing.’”

The rest of August? “A blur. Truly. We were hanging on for dear life.”

Over the coming weeks, their work hours increased. They added a couple people to help bus tables, so payroll increased. Their deliveries increased. (“We get all our meat from Maxbauers, and we had to call and ask: ‘Do you have any meat left?’”)

They had to close early on some days due to demand. Their days off turned into prep days to get ready for the flood of visitors that would be driving in the next day from places like Petoskey, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and beyond. Just for a burger people saw on the internet.

Behind the Scenes

Lee, for his part, is well aware of the power accounts like his can have. He’s been doing this since long before the rise of TikTok—his coverage started anonymously in the days of Yelp and FourSquare—and knows his videos can bring a lot of people to a restaurant, but rarely like this.

“With these videos, you never know. It was definitely one of my highest. It just went crazy. On all of them. I posted it on Facebook, it went nuts. On Twitter, YouTube Shorts, whatever.” (As of press time, the video had well over 200,000 views and likes across social platforms.)

The original trip that prompted the video was pretty low key. “I usually never go to TC in the summertime, but when I went with my family from Korea, I said, you know what? I’m gonna get [a Glendale burger]. I went there, got the food, paid for it, chatted with [Bray] for a few seconds because he was really busy. And that was it,” Lee tells us. “And then I ate … and then didn’t post it for a year.”

Yes—a year. While thousands of people were digitally experiencing a Glendale Junction burger for the first time, that burger was actually consumed 11 months prior, and that delay was definitely a godsend for Glendale.

“We couldn’t have handled it when he filmed it. There’s not a world where we could have handled it within two months of opening,” Bray says. “It’s great that he took his time with it. It came when we needed it.”

Lee had in fact stopped by in September of 2023, and circumstances in Traverse City had changed a bit since his visit. “When that video came out, Parkway construction had just moved down and everyone was talking about how terrible it was,” Bray says. “Every local was kind of avoiding it, [but] tourists don’t care about construction.”

The Keith Lee Effect

A professional photographer by trade, Lee’s food coverage has earned him awards from publications like Zagat and Hour Detroit. He stopped at Glendale with his family on a trip to Traverse City mostly because of a personal relationship: Bray and Lee knew of each other from Bray’s time at Folgarelli's Market & Wine Shop. (Bray is probably also one of the more savvier restaurateurs when it comes to storytelling on social media.)

2024 was also the year where people became familiar with the idea of “the Keith Lee effect,” so named for the massively popular TikTok restaurant reviewer who often dines in his car at restaurants nationwide, reviewing takeout orders and delivering massive waves of customers following his visits.

The Keith Lee effect is real, and in Michigan, the Chow Down Detroit/Seuoung Lee effect is also clearly a presence, though mostly in the southeast part of the state. For that reason, the response to the Glendale Burger review was extra surprising.

“I didn’t think it was going to go viral, because it’s in Traverse City and not in Detroit,” Lee says. “It’s all about the algorithm. I don’t understand it, but, you know, it does its job.”

And in spite of the added workload and influx of customers, looking back, Bray doesn’t have any complaints.

“Hard work … it’s the industry, right? If a Little League tournament was in town and we got crushed for the weekend, I’m not gonna get mad at the tournament,” he says. “I subscribe to the notion that rising tides raise all ships. Suddenly these people come up because they saw this review, and while they’re here, maybe they stayed the night at a hotel. Maybe they popped in and bought some fudge. It was good. We’re happy. It was a lot of work, but whatever—that’s the job.”

The Staying Power

As for the long-term impact of that video?

“We still get people coming in and talking about the video,” Bray says, and notes that the post exposes them to a lot of new faces that otherwise might not have known about Glendale. “With our point of sale system, I can tell first time customers versus return customers. For August, it ended up being like 80 percent first-time customers.”

There was another “tell” of who might be a first timer as well: “Everyone was like, ‘I want the thing that the guy got with the sauce on the side.’”

Some of those guests still come to mind today.

“There were people [who said] ‘We’ve been at home for every one of our anniversaries for the past 25 years. But this year we saw the review and we had to come in and get a burger on our anniversary.’ It’s those little things you hear, and you’re like, ‘Because this guy ate a burger in his car, this is now a part of your story,’” Bray says with disbelief. “You take the good with the bad, you forget the bad, and remember the good.”

The effects are lingering for Lee as well. “I still get people commenting on that video,” he says. “I’m happy for [Glendale]. I’m glad it worked out, you know?”

That’s just the power of a good smashburger apparently…and Lee is happy to take recommendations for another TC visit later this year.