Zach Sherman (00:10)
Hi everyone. And welcome back to Handling the Heat, the podcast by restaurant equipment.bid, where we dive into the real stories behind the people powering the food service industry. Today, we’re joined by Kat Romneos, the creator behind Eating All of New York, an account that took off during the pandemic as she shared her favorite spots around New York City. Kat built a loyal following of nearly 70,000, collaborated with brands and helped shine a spotlight on some of the city’s most exciting restaurants. We talk about how it all started.

what it was like managing content alongside a full-time job, and how growing an account sometimes changes your relationship with the thing that you love. Kat shares what worked, what didn’t, and why she decided to take a step back, even with the momentum still going strong. If you’re curious about how food content gets made, what goes into growing and following, or what it looks like to simply press pause, this one’s for you.

Zach Sherman (01:02)
Kat, thank you so much for joining us on Handling the Heat. Super excited to talk through your experience in the food influencer space here in New York.

Kat (01:10)
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Zach Sherman (01:13)
Awesome. So before we get started into the specific questions and your experience, what’s something you’ve eaten recently that you’ve really enjoyed?

Kat (01:22)
Mmm, the tacos from Tocarrillo Ramirez in Greenpoint. Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Sherman (01:27)
Yum. Those are really good. Have you had the new

Carnitas Ramirez? The new one that they just opened up in the Lower East Side?

Kat (01:35)
No, I haven’t, but it’s on the list. Yeah.

Zach Sherman (01:37)
Maybe on the list. Yeah. Cool. Well, speaking

of the list and trying out new restaurants in New York, really excited to talk about your experience, Kat, ⁓ starting up as a food influencer and content creator here in New York. So can you talk a little bit about what made you start, ⁓ this posting experience, like going from zero to one, like what made you get out there, create the account and, and get some content up at the beginning.

Kat (02:05)
So it was the middle of 2020. So we were deep in COVID and there was nothing, quite literally nothing to do except for dining outdoors. And I was living in New York. I was living with a couple of my friends in Murray Hill as a 23 year old does. And I

decided that, you know, given that there was nothing else to do, I wanted to try as many restaurants and just dine outdoors ⁓ and find a way to document it all. So I did that through Instagram, ⁓ eventually started posting on TikTok as well. And ⁓ the more I posted, the more of a following I got and the more inspired I got to just continue doing.

Zach Sherman (02:53)
What was the decision to do it as a separate account versus just posting it on your personal account? Cause I feel like that’s like the first big domino to fall in a lot of these situations.

Kat (03:04)
didn’t want to annoy people with the amount that I was posting because there were so many places that I wanted to try. I just wanted to keep it separate, almost like a diary of sorts.

Zach Sherman (03:05)
Yeah, that’s considerate.

So it sounds like the original goal was something along the lines of keeping your own journal of all the different places that you were able to try. ⁓ did you have any kind of content strategy or anything like that from the beginning? Or it was just get out there and document as much as possible.

Kat (03:30)
In the beginning, I really didn’t have much of a strategy. It was just taking pictures, videos of anything and everything that I was getting, or even if I wasn’t eating it and I thought it looked good and my friends was eating it, I would post about it. Obviously, I would try Bite here and there, because they’re my friends and they would let me eat some of their food. But ⁓ I think the longer that I did it, probably, I want to say about a year or so in.

I didn’t even have like a really strict strategy per se, but I was more consistent with posting ⁓ pretty much daily. And so that was almost the strategy in a sense.

Zach Sherman (04:14)
think one of the things that’s super interesting to me is a lot of the people that create content in general, but specifically what I see in terms of like New York city specific food content is they have full-time jobs, right? This is something that’s a hobby that kind of transitions into something that is a little bit more than that. How did having a full-time job, especially when you’re at, you know, a year end and you’re building out your content daily, how did that kind of

change the way that you viewed the content itself Where you have daily responsibilities, you have other things going on in your day-to-day life, and then tag this on, on top of it.

Kat (04:53)
⁓ I mean at first it was really fun for me truthfully so it didn’t even feel like extra work that I was doing and It was something that I just fully dedicated outside I mean I work of nine to five so like I would do things

outside of work hours, would go to dinner after work, I would edit content after work, I would do things on the weekends, of course. So at first it was pretty easy to balance. The longer I did it though, the more it started to feel like work and the less fun it started to feel. So I mean, I will say in the beginning, it didn’t even feel like this just extra responsibility. It was just really fun for me.

Zach Sherman (05:32)
Yeah, is kind of interesting, the transition from hobby to work. And it probably comes with having more of a following, right? Like at some point you’re like doing something for fun and you’re realizing, Hey, there’s something here. I’m getting so many followers. What was that? You know, transition for you from, you know, Hey, this is something I’m doing for fun to Hey, this is something that actually has some legs to it. And was it when Joe Jonas followed your account?

Kat (05:58)
Did Annali tell you about that? Yeah, yeah, ⁓ that was great. I know, who’s the woman from Schitt’s Creek that also followed me? Annie Murphy. Yeah, she also followed mine. ⁓

Zach Sherman (06:00)
She did, yes.

Yeah. Ooh, very cool.

Kat (06:12)
so I think it was probably when I got to 20,000 followers and when I had more restaurants and brands reaching out to me offering essentially like payment ⁓ for posting. So one thing I do want to disclaim also is I would only post restaurants. Most restaurants would not actually pay me to post. ⁓

but it was more so brands. And I wouldn’t want to work with a brand unless I actually really liked what I was doing with them. ⁓ So that is usually what I mean, again, like it’s hard to remember the exact follower count, but I think it was somewhere around 20,000. And I remember there were brands offering me payment for posting.

Zach Sherman (07:05)
once you like get into the groove of this with brands promoting, ⁓ through you and working directly with partnerships, with restaurants and things like that, how does.

the exponential curve of followership happen, meaning like it feels like it’s kind of like a slow trickle. And then at some point it’s like, you’re at 20,000 and you’re at 50,000, right? How does that, you know, hockey stick of followership have an impact on your, content, content strategy, the amount of time that it takes to keep up with this account and the brands and the messages and things like that.

Kat (07:25)
Yeah.

So I would say for me, yeah, mean, it definitely, there was a period of time where I noticed the follower count growing significantly and it was really quick. So at first it was very gradual and steady. I think when that happened, it was about the time that Reels started becoming big on Instagram. So I remember this so clearly. I posted a Reel after I went to 4Charles and it was a video of the burger and it did really well because it’s

a very appetizing burger. It looks really good. The way that they present it is really appealing. And so I had a video of that of the waiter with his white glove just cutting the egg yolk open. it got, I think, over a million, like millions of views, really. I don’t know exactly how many, but I remember through that video, I, the follower count like shot up. ⁓

I don’t know by how much, it’s hard to remember because this was a few years ago, but ⁓ I realized that, okay, Instagram really likes when I post reels. I’m gonna continue to post reels. And that’s how I continued to grow my following because I knew that that’s what the algorithm wanted. So I was gonna do what the algorithm wanted basically.

Zach Sherman (09:01)
Yeah.

So was your strategy, both content and you know, where you were going or whatever else, how much of that was organic just based on like, Hey, let me try some things here. Let me try some things there and see what sticks or were you doing research and trying to see what other people were doing and you know, finding out here’s what the best content like optimization strategy could be for each of your accounts or was it a lot of trial and error for you? you say.

Kat (09:28)
think the strategy piece of it was more so in the places that I was going to, not in the actual content, because I think for me, what mattered the most to me was, I mean, the quality of the video, right? I made sure that I always had to record it in 4K 60 to make sure that the video was as clear as possible, made sure that the lighting was good and all of that. And I think that was about it in terms of the actual content.

I think editing also has a lot to do with it. I wanted to make sure that the editing made sense if there was background music. I wanted to make certain cuts when the beat dropped or whatever part in the song that I wanted to feature. what I thought about more was where I was actually going to go and what places I was going to feature. So for me, it was actually less so about

what restaurant’s gonna give me a free meal, but it was more about what place is going to be really exciting for me to try, but also to share with other people. And it didn’t matter whether, it didn’t matter to me whether I was gonna pay for it not. And if it was comped, amazing, but if it was a place that I just genuinely wanted to go to, I would do it anyway.

Zach Sherman (10:41)
feel like the.

genuineness of that comes through in the content, right? If you’re just doing everything and you’re being a mouthpiece for people that are reaching out to you, because you obviously have this great following and you’re spending a lot of time editing and making sure you have high quality content out there, but it doesn’t feel genuine to you as a person, as the content creator. like as a viewer and we make content for this podcast, we make content for our brand as well. And it feels like it comes across. ⁓

very obviously when it is fabricated almost for a free meal or for something comped or, whatever that may be. What do you think Kat was the cause obviously this opens up a ton of doors now, like you have this huge following base. have big celebrities following you. You’re, know, bringing in a lot of eyes to specific restaurants. What do think the best experience was that you had throughout this whole process?

Kat (11:39)
so one of the best experiences I actually had was with ⁓ Coat, the Korean steakhouse. It is my favorite restaurant to this day. I went in there and this actually, it has nothing, well, something to do with me food blogging, but they didn’t know that I was in this space actually when this happened. So I get there, I’m with a couple of my friends. We basically get sat.

an hour late for our reservation. And when 30 minutes passes, we’re kind of asking the host, okay, what’s the update? They sit us down at the bar ⁓ underneath undercoat. ⁓ It’s really cool. It’s like aquarium themed. It’s so cute. They comped a few drinks for us. They also comped a bunch of appetizers, one of them which had caviar. So again, really expensive stuff. And I think more than they needed to do.

Eventually, an hour later, we sit down at our table. They were super apologetic about seating us so late. They then sent the manager over and the manager apologized to us and he said, look, like, I’m so sorry again. I’m just going to comp your entire meal pretty much. ⁓ And it was like the best service that I had ever gotten at a restaurant, truthfully. And they didn’t know that I was in that space. ⁓ They didn’t know that I was recording it. They didn’t know anything.

And no offense to myself, I’m not that important. So even if they did know who I was, I don’t think they would care. ⁓ But regardless, it was just such great service ⁓ that I ended up actually posting about it on TikTok. And when I told this story on TikTok, it got hundreds of thousands of views. And then the PR team that was working with Coat saw it, reached out to me, and then invited me to an event that they were having at Coat a couple of weeks from then. ⁓

⁓ They also invited me to the opening of Coco Doc, is the new restaurant. It’s not new anymore, but the new restaurant at the time that was opening. ⁓ I went to that launch party and it was so cool. It was just a good experience ⁓ that I shared with people and it resulted in really good connections and just, you know, good experiences with a really good restaurant that I will always love. Yeah.

Zach Sherman (13:52)
That’s awesome. Yeah,

that’s great. And now it’s with you forever. And I think we talked to a lot of operators that like, try to bring that experience. And again, may feel genuine may not. And ultimately people just want to feel seen and have a good time if they’re spending their hard earned dollars at whatever restaurant that they’re going to. that’s great. But I think one of the things that, that spurs up for me, Kat is how do these partnerships generally come about?

Because it feels like from some of the people that I’ve talked to you and from that experience, some of it is organic, right? Where you’re posting something, you like something. They see that they then reach out to you versus maybe you’re getting reached out to you by partnerships from restaurants that see you because you have a big following and you’ve never been to their restaurant before. How would you maybe break down and categorize how those partnerships came about? ⁓ and which you felt like were.

more successful for you and for the restaurant.

Kat (14:56)
So it was, I know people will do this differently. A lot of people will do their own outreach directly to restaurants that they want to go to. I honestly really didn’t do that that much unless there was a place that I really was dying to go to. It was more so based on which places were reaching out to me. And again, like what I was posting, it was not entirely restaurants that were just reaching out to me. I wanted to curate the places that I was going to very specifically, but every time I had a restaurant reach out to me, I would

look at their page, would look at their menu, I would decide is this a place that I would actually truly like to go to myself? And if it wasn’t, you I wouldn’t do it. ⁓ But if it was, then I would do it. But I would say the majority of the partnerships were inbound, just places reaching out to me.

Zach Sherman (15:47)
And what does a partnership look like? Is it someone saying, come to our restaurant for a meal, or is it, we’ll give you, know, X percent offer. Like how does that kind of breakdown work?

Kat (15:58)
So it depends on who you’re working with. If you’re working with a brand specifically, I don’t know if I’m like supposed to talk about this, but it was like a really big beverage brand that I worked with at one point and like they paid me. If it’s like a big chain or a very well known brand, they will pay you. If it’s a local restaurant, I typically

wouldn’t charge unless they said, we have a budget for X, Y, and Z. You know, we’ll work with you to do very specific content is what I would do. But most cases, if it was a restaurant reaching out to me, they would say, hey, come on in. We will comp your meal in exchange for content. But there were also times where I couldn’t necessarily promise content because if I walked in there and I didn’t end up liking it, I don’t

I didn’t really see a point in posting it. So I would only really go if it was a place that I would know that I liked or I’ve had friends that went that really liked it ⁓ and knew it.

But yeah, that was, that’s basically it.

Zach Sherman (17:01)
Yeah. And do you ever feel though, that when you’re working with a specific brand or with a specific restaurant, that there was any pressure on you enjoy the meal What, what was the

I guess, expectations and how that had an impact on you and your experience versus just going to a restaurant that you wanted to check out yourself.

Kat (17:24)
So I think it depends on the place, right? Like some places would ask for very specific things. They would say, we want you to do a video or a post about this specific menu item, or we want you to record it in this way. Most places would just allow me the creative freedom to do whatever I wanted and post about whatever I wanted. I didn’t necessarily feel a ton of pressure to enjoy it because if I didn’t enjoy it, then I wouldn’t post about it.

Zach Sherman (17:54)
Sure.

Kat (17:55)
which, because again, I’m not going to post about something that I didn’t feel like I genuinely enjoyed. And there were actually instances where, and maybe only a few that I can count on one hand, where I went in and I was expecting it to be good. And then I just genuinely, for whatever reason, like I remember this one time I was invited into a hotel bar and I thought it was going to be really great. It turns out I did not have.

great service at all. It was kind of dirty, admittedly, and the quality of the food just was not it. And I just didn’t feel like it would look good on my page. I didn’t feel like I personally enjoyed it. wasn’t a place that I would go back again. And so I just was honest. And I said, look, I just don’t feel like this experience was good for me. And like, for that reason, I just don’t feel comfortable posting about it. You know, I’m happy to pay for it. But at the same time, it’s like I didn’t I didn’t feel like it would have been.

Zach Sherman (18:51)
Yeah.

Kat (18:52)
good because I didn’t like it.

Zach Sherman (18:53)
that’s probably a tough conversation to have now in the moment with the people that you’re saying, Hey, you know, maybe not for me. Do you feel like good content came from your enjoyment of the experience or was good content, good content? Like if you have the right camera, you have the right lighting, you have the right, you know, ambiance around you. It sounds like from a lot of what you’re saying, it’s like the stuff that really was good.

Kat (18:56)
Yeah.

Zach Sherman (19:20)
Was stuff that represented an experience that you really enjoyed.

Kat (19:26)
Definitely. mean, I think good content is good content. I think different things will appeal to different people, right? Like personally, I hate seafood. I don’t like content about seafood. So I’m not gonna be enjoying that. But I think the content that I recorded and posted about, they were menu items and restaurants that I was super excited about. Like I think in order for your content to do well, it actually has to be a good product, whether it’s a restaurant.

⁓ fashion, it’s like, you know, kitchen tools, literally anything that you are posting about in any sort of industry, if it’s not a good product, don’t expect it to do well, even if you’re like, regardless of who’s making content about it. ⁓ So I think partially the content, why it did well was because I was posting about places that were genuinely really good places that I genuinely enjoyed. But, you know, I just

believed in the food that they were selling.

Zach Sherman (20:28)
Yeah. What was your high watermark on followership across Instagram and Tik TOK?

Kat (20:32)
total across those platforms probably.

close to high 60s, maybe almost 70,000. Yeah.

Zach Sherman (20:39)
Wow. And

you’re doing all these things. You’re going out to eat how many times a week would you say?

Kat (20:47)
at the highest point, probably five or six times a week. Not good.

Zach Sherman (20:51)
Okay. So you’re going out to eat

five or six times a week. You’re putting out likely multiple videos, right? A day you’re keeping up appearances with brands, restaurants, partnerships, your followers, right? Commenting back and making sure you’re kind of building up your community. You’d said this before at the beginning, but what was the transition like from like, Hey, this is super fun to, Hey, this is more like work.

Kat (20:57)
Mm-hmm.

Zach Sherman (21:17)
Right? This is like, this is like taking over more of my life than maybe I originally anticipated. What, ⁓ was that like for you? And when did that realization kind of come about?

Kat (21:19)
Yeah.

It happened probably about a year ago, so summer of 2024.

Zach Sherman (21:32)
And this is four years

into three and a half, four years into like building up the page.

Kat (21:38)
Yeah, just about. Yeah, it was about a year ago and I just like, I don’t know what, well, I just like lost inspiration because I felt like I had so many inbound places reaching out to me that A, I could not keep up with everything. B, I was getting pretty busy at my full-time job and I didn’t want this to take like,

my side passion project, if you will, to take away from that. And granted, yes, I made money from my food blog, but it wasn’t going to be anywhere near as much money as I could have made full, like I would make full time. that was another thing. And then it just started to feel more like work, the more partnership opportunities that I had. I thought, look, I think it’s a great opportunity. I could seize it, but

The reason I started it was for fun and I just wasn’t having fun with it anymore.

Zach Sherman (22:42)
feel like a lot of people don’t come to that realization and then they just like slog through the mud. I think it’s great to realize like what was the original inspiration and make sure that, if it’s not that anymore, check back in with yourself and make the decision to let it go. But I’m sure that that was a difficult decision to come to. How did that, the actual like deletion of the account, how did go down?

Kat (23:05)
Nothing like crazy really. It was just one day I realized I hadn’t posted in absolutely months and I thought, look, what’s the point? So I just, temporarily deactivated it so I can actually reactivate it anytime that I want. It’s still there. I don’t think anyone can take the handle, but I, it was just one day I woke up and I thought, you know what, what’s the point of having this still up? So I took it down.

Zach Sherman (23:16)
Got it.

Yeah,

Do you miss it at all? Or do you feel relief? I guess after having completed, you know, your journey through food influencer life cycle.

Kat (23:40)
I missed some parts of it, but I also felt a weight off my shoulders when I deleted it because I felt free of lot of responsibility, to be honest with you. And I felt like I could just dedicate more time to things that, like outside of work, that would be better for me. Cause literally, like I would go to dinner so often and it’s like, that’s what I would do for fun. And it was fun, but.

That can’t be the only thing I’m doing, ⁓ at least for me personally.

Zach Sherman (24:11)
Yeah.

No, definitely. What do you think? Do you think you like walk? for, from my experience, Kat, I used to work for Caesar’s entertainment in Las Vegas and I would walk into a casino and like initially be just like, Whoa, this is crazy. But then when you kind of see behind the curtain and see how things are happening, ⁓ it changes your perspective on it. You obviously get a little bit more comfortable with like the shock and awe of it. And, and you know, now every time I walk into a casino, I’m like,

pointing out things that I, the only people that have worked at a casino would be able to see. And I’m sure you have the same experience now going out to dinner now, right? Like you’ve seen behind the curtain, you’ve seen all the, you know, partnership exchanges, you’ve been to however many restaurants over the last five years, especially if you’re eating out five, six times a week, how do you go to restaurants now and has that kind of experience changed for you?

Kat (25:09)
It has. I can definitely enjoy and be present in the moment a lot more now. ⁓ Whereas as soon, I mean previously as soon as the food hit the table, I would have to think about, okay, what’s the best angle for a picture? How can I pick this taco up to make it look the best that it can? And then I would eat the food and then I would enjoy it of course, but, cause let’s be real, like I’m not gonna be a food blogger and not eat food, but I go in now with a more

Zach Sherman (25:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kat (25:39)
relaxed mindset of just knowing I am here for me. I don’t have to worry about a picture looking good or a video looking good or something looking aesthetically pleasing. So, yeah, I just feel a lot less pressure.

Zach Sherman (25:58)
Yeah, no, that’s great. And I feel like now you can enjoy the food for, for what it is, you know, and now first. The phone doesn’t eat first for a lot of these restaurants, which is good. ⁓ do you think in New York city, especially, and I think, I mean, whenever I travel, my social media algorithm just goes directly to, you know, Philadelphia food influencers or Chicago food influencers or whatever. Do you think the influencer.

Kat (26:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly.

Zach Sherman (26:25)
culture around food and restaurants is sustainable, both from the perspective of the influencers or content creators, as well as the restaurants that are partnering with these people.

Kat (26:39)
I think it depends. think it’s sustainable for, I mean, I feel like it can only really speak to the social media side, like the people who are actually posting, but I think it’s sustainable for people who take a genuine angle on their content. I don’t think it’s sustainable for people who, and I can tell when this happens. I can tell when someone is posting a meal just because they got it for free, or I can specifically see when people are

Zach Sherman (26:45)
Yeah.

Kat (27:08)
making every single post about a restaurant and I know that they went there for free because you can you can kind of tell in the language of how they’re talking about things and I mean I just know which also restaurant also which restaurants will do a lot of free promo which I don’t again I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that but I know that there have been a lot of places that I just know are not good and people will still post about them anyway and I know good is subjective but

A lot of these places have been deemed not good by many people, and so I can tell when things are genuine or not. think it’s also more sustainable when you truly love it. ⁓ Right? So I think if you’re doing it just to be in it, to be paid and just to get free food, you’re not going to do well and you’re also going to not enjoy it. Whereas like I enjoyed it for a while, but it just started to feel more like work. ⁓ So that’s just my take on it.

Zach Sherman (28:06)
Yeah. It sounds like from a lot of what you’ve said, being genuine is like number one most important thing to create good content around food. Do you have any other advice you would give to somebody who does want to maybe start out into this, even though it may, you know, take over more of their life than they originally anticipate if they’re, they’re good at it.

Kat (28:27)
Yeah, I really, I mean, I know I’ve said this before, it’s cheesy, but post about what you love. ⁓ Don’t go to a place if they’re just offering you free food just because they’re offering you free food. I mean, if it’s a place that you genuinely would go to anyway, then absolutely go for it. Yeah. and if a place is comping your food, always leave a tip because I have met some people that actually don’t do that and I’ve been absolutely appalled.

Zach Sherman (28:56)
Yeah,

that’s great advice. Kat, what’s next for you? I know you have the account deactivated. Are you thinking about potentially bringing it back out and giving it another go? Or what’s your content creation ⁓ path forward?

Kat (29:12)
I don’t know if I have one. We’ll have to see. I think if I were to bring it back, it would definitely involve a lot more cooking because right now I have over the past year. So I have been way more into cooking and making things from scratch myself, which I really love. Granted, it takes a lot of time. So if I were to bring it back, that’s probably the angle that I would take, but I think it would also lead to feeling similar pressure just in a different way. And so I can’t.

say if I would actually bring it back. ⁓ I would probably, I would lean towards probably not because it may still just not be fun for me. But regardless, I just want to enjoy what I eat.

Zach Sherman (29:53)
Yeah. Enjoying

what you eat is a good goal to have regardless of if you’re filming it or not. Awesome. Well, yeah, no, it’d be tough not to, but thank you so much, Kat. Appreciate the time and appreciate you sharing your experience with us here at Handling the Heat.

Kat (29:57)
Yep. Yeah. I was still enjoying it though at the time, but yeah.

yeah.

Yeah, thank you so much, Zach. I appreciate it.