A few days ago, Lulu’s Bakery & Café in San Antonio, Texas announced it was closing permanently. Media outlets around the area picked up the story because Lulu’s is selling almost all of the restaurant equipment and decorations via an online auction. People interested can pick up some old memorabilia, kitchen equipment, and/or other things (old t-shirts) available to remember Lulu’s by. Lulu’s was featured on Man v Food: San Antonio, Texas because of their over-the-top 3lb cinnamon rolls and chicken fried steak. They for years hosted a 12-minute chicken fried steak challenge which went viral around the internet multiple times. They closed down in March 2020 because of Covid-19, saying it was temporary, but now they have confirmed that the closure is permanent.
Many people have commented or messaged me about the closure, because of the video I posted back in May 2020, entitled 4 Times I’ve Been CHEATED By Food Challenge Restaurants!! I recounted four times where I got cheated by food challenge restaurants who either added A LOT more food than they should have, specifically so that I would lose, or just didn’t let me attempt the challenge at all. Final story #4 featured Lulu’s Bakery & Café, where I gave an unbiased report of the events leading up to myself, the group I was with, and more than 7 families who came to watch and meet us, all being kicked out of Lulu’s and police escorted off the premises. To learn the full story, if you haven’t already watched the video, check it out below, and listen to the other 3 preceding stories too.
One of the reasons I revamped this website was so I could blog about current affairs and discuss relevant topics as they arose. Many of my posts will answer common questions people wonder, such as what I’ll do after getting food challenge victory #1000. That post is coming soon!! I felt this topic was worth writing about because it’s the #1 video on both YouTube (8.3 million views) and Facebook (7.7 million views). More importantly, lots of people have been letting me know about the closure, with a “celebratory” undertone.
It would be inauthentic of me to say I didn’t get a little excited about the manager no longer having a job there – the condescending one who kicked us all out and called the police over the possibility of a totally free video being published on our channels that would positively promote Lulu’s food and culture to people in the San Antonio community and potential visitors all around the world. I do want to make it clear though that I am not celebrating or “happy” about Lulu’s closing entirely. It’s all a very unfortunate situation.
I have been doing food challenges since 2010, for over 11 years now, and I’ve been a professional eater since October 2013 (that is when I retired from the construction industry). My goal has always been to positively promote the mom and pop small businesses and restaurants that host food challenges. Even when food doesn’t turn out that well, or something else negative happens, I still do my best to put a positive spin on everything to showcase the restaurant in a positive manner – especially if the staff really cared and tried hard to get everything prepared properly. Most food challenges rarely get attempted, so the chefs don’t have much experience with preparing them. I would never want an improperly cooked food challenge meal to negatively reflect a restaurant’s entire menu.
My team and I showed up on December 30, 2017 with full intention of positively promoting Lulu’s via myself and my friend taking on their Texas Ranger Chicken Fried Steak Challenge. I called a few times beforehand to make sure they were prepared, as explained in the video. Everything that happened was completely unexpected, illogical, and still unexplainable because Lulu’s never addressed it afterwards. They were not sorry to any of the 7 families or other paying customers, because we were apparently “messing up their system.” It was entirely legal for them to kick us all off the premises, as many people pointed out via the YouTube video comments.
Lulu’s had an ownership and management issue. That is undebatable, since none of this would have happened otherwise, and there would be a video on our channels of me taking on Lulu’s “Texas Ranger” Challenge. By now, there might be a second video if I had failed the first time, since it had a very short time limit. I posted about the experience the next day, and Lulu’s never responded or addressed the situation at all, even after having time to reflect on it. They didn’t care about what happened that night, but they did change up their policies, because many of my “eating” friends took on the challenge after I tried to. That is awesome because I have heard so many great things about Lulu’s food, especially their 3lb cinnamon roll that was featured on Man v. Food: San Antonio, TX.
Lulu’s had very poor customer service ratings long before we posted that video. I’m sure they had many other “wake up calls” too, besides our videos publishing and getting such a huge response. Unfortunately, nothing ever changed, which is why Lulu’s is now closed permanently. That “cheated” video obviously did well for our channels, but I would much rather have a simple video of me taking on the challenge itself, positively promoting the restaurant and enjoying their (most likely) delicious chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. There is only one restaurant that I’d close permanently, or at least ban them from hosting challenges. I’ve never been and won’t ever go there, due to how they treated a bunch of my eating friends. From what I can tell, that restaurant is thriving, which is okay at the end of the day, because that means they must treat regular customers well, which is a great thing!!
If you look at Lulu’s Yelp reviews and reviews on other platforms, you’ll see otherwise. Still though, them closing is not something to celebrate or be happy about. Lots of families were affected by the closure, just as so many other people have been impacted since all this started back in March 2020. I do hope all the employees were able to find other positions at other companies, hopefully with a stronger company culture. The same goes for most of the management – I hope they learned from the experience and are thriving elsewhere. Many people think I have avoided San Antonio since then, because of what happened. That is not true, and I just haven’t been back to San Antonio because that same evening, I beat the only non-spicy challenge in the area I know about – The Godzilla Hamburger Challenge at Bobby J’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers in Helotes, Texas. If you know of any others, please let me know!!
Is there a certain topic you want me to write about? Please let me know via social media comments!!
To go back and check out other Randy’s Blog posts, please click here!!