'Keith Lee Effect': TikTok Star Saves Las Vegas Burger Place From Closing

The "Keith Lee Effect" is hard at work saving small restaurants from closing their doors!

The wildly popular TikTok food critic recently visited a family-owned Las Vegas burger place that was close to shutting its doors for good and helped them get noticed and sell out daily. And all with one TikTok review of a few of their menu items.

After TikToker @iamcassiemcc shared a video showing how empty Joy Burgers was in the middle of the day and asking Lee to be tagged, Lee took note and visited to see why they were lacking business.

"Okay, I need you guys to tag Keith Lee 'cause there's no reason this burger place in Vegas should be this empty in the middle of the day," she began her video that showed the empty restaurant. "It's completely family-owned, as you can see, his daughter's helping in the back."

Her video went on to show some of the food she tried while there. Lee stitched her video and rated the food he purchased.

"The owners themselves also made a video saying they were on the verge of closing," Lee said. "So today I came to see, in my opinion, why are they in the situation? Is it the food? Is it the customer service? Or is it the lack of marketing? Let's find out together."

Lee spent $48 and said the customer service was "amazing." Lee called his order ahead of time on a blocked number, changed his voice, and put his order in under an alias. He said the person on the phone was friendly and patient and the food only took 10 minutes to come out.

Lee then showed the food he was about to rate from one to 10. He got a chicken sandwich named, "Another Hot Chicken Sandwich," a blue burger, mango habanero wings, parmesan fries, and a Joy burger.

The food critic started with the blue burger that had blue cheese, arugula, and bacon on it. He immediately let out a "fo sho you right on" with the eye roll and all. He then tried some fries. Anyone who follows Lee knows how he feels about his fries, and this one definitely won him over.

He rated the burger and fries together a 9.2 out of 10, which is a high rating for Lee.

Then it was time for the Joy burger that had a large onion ring on it. Lee said he felt the onion ring was overcooked.

"The burger is seasoned really well, and I think they use really high-quality ingredients. I'm just not feeling this onion ring, personally," he said after taking a bite. "It's very greasy and it's kind of taking away from the taste of the burger itself for me."

He rated this burger 6.8 out of 10 and said it was a really good burger.

Time for some wings! After a few bites of the wings, Lee rated them 9 out of 10. Last but not least, the chicken sandwich and garlic parmesan fries. The fries were rated a 9.5 out of 10 and the chicken sandwich a 7.5 out of 10.

"It's not the customer service. It's not the food," he concluded his video. "The reason they are slow is the marketing. And I pray and hope after this, they reach their target audience."

Lee's video received more than 29 million views on TikTok in just a few short days. Not only did Lee's video get tons of attention, but Joy Burgers' social media pages also got some much-needed love.

Lee did a follow-up video less than 24 hours after his review and shared that in that time, Joy Burgers' TikTok page went from 184 followers to more than 62,000. And now a few days later, their follower count is up to more than 110,000.

The videos that Lee was tagged in showed a full restaurant and a line to order.

"I think it's safe to say," Lee said, "Joy Burgers ain't going nowhere no time soon."

The restaurant shared two videos on its Instagram page showing how things have been going since Lee's review. In one video, Hector, the restaurant owner, thanked Lee for how much he helped them out.

One of their followers took to the comment section to share, " We had Joy tonight! It was our second time and it’s absolutely one of my favorite spots now. I remember the customer service the first time we went in and your employees are such a pleasure to talk to. The food is so good and you deserve every ounce of this."

Another person wrote, "Love this story! Love the positive power of social media!"