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This Bagel Shop Used ChatGPT for a Father's Day Promotion. Then It Got Roasted Online.
Washingtonian
@washingtonian.com
A ChatGPT-generated Father's Day promotion sparked online backlash for a DC bagel shop, highlighting the growing debate over AI's role in restaurant marketing.
https://washingtonian.com/2026/06/26/this-bagel-shop-used-chatgpt-for-a-fathers-day-promotion-then-it-got-roasted-online/
12:37 PM · Jun 26, 2026
@washingtonian.com
A ChatGPT-generated Father's Day promotion sparked online backlash for a DC bagel shop, highlighting the growing debate over AI's role in restaurant marketing.
https://washingtonian.com/2026/06/26/this-bagel-shop-used-chatgpt-for-a-fathers-day-promotion-then-it-got-roasted-online/
12:37 PM · Jun 26, 2026
A ChatGPT-generated Father's Day promotion sparked online backlash for a DC bagel shop, highlighting the growing debate over AI's role in restaurant marketing.
— Washingtonian (@washingtonian.com) 2026-06-26T16:37:08.352Z
washingtonian.com/2026/06/26/t...
This Bagel Shop Used ChatGPT for a Father’s Day Promotion. Then It Got Roasted Online.
Even small restaurants are getting caught up in the greater AI debate.
Written by Jessica Sidman | Published on June 26, 2026
Buffalo & Bergen's lox sandwich. Photograph by Rey Lopez.
For Father’s Day, Buffalo & Bergen owner Gina Chersevani decided to create a social media promotion using ChatGPT for her DC bagel shops. Her husband—the father of her two young girls—died last fall, making this year’s holiday a particularly tough one.
“I didn’t want to post on Father’s Day. It was emotionally draining that day,” she says. “We made the post, and then I didn’t really check it.”
Because she was distracted and distraught, Chersevani says she didn’t closely examine the slop image the AI spit out: the a man’s arm was twisted backwards holding a bag of bagels, and he was wearing a baseball cap generically reading “BAGEL PROVIDER EST. ALWAYS.” Meanwhile, ChatGPT hallucinated New York skyscrapers along DC’s skyline.
“One of my regulars came over to the store and was like, ‘You know you’re getting slammed on Reddit right now? And I’m like, what are you talking about?,'” Chersevani says. The Reddit post amassed more than 100 comments making fun of and dissing the post. Chersevani says she also started getting DMs, including one calling her a “fucking loser.”
Screenshot from Reddit.
“People went bananas. Attacking me, attacking each other, like I caused all the issues for AI that ever happened,” she says.
{snip}
Even small restaurants are getting caught up in the greater AI debate.
Written by Jessica Sidman | Published on June 26, 2026
Buffalo & Bergen's lox sandwich. Photograph by Rey Lopez.
For Father’s Day, Buffalo & Bergen owner Gina Chersevani decided to create a social media promotion using ChatGPT for her DC bagel shops. Her husband—the father of her two young girls—died last fall, making this year’s holiday a particularly tough one.
“I didn’t want to post on Father’s Day. It was emotionally draining that day,” she says. “We made the post, and then I didn’t really check it.”
Because she was distracted and distraught, Chersevani says she didn’t closely examine the slop image the AI spit out: the a man’s arm was twisted backwards holding a bag of bagels, and he was wearing a baseball cap generically reading “BAGEL PROVIDER EST. ALWAYS.” Meanwhile, ChatGPT hallucinated New York skyscrapers along DC’s skyline.
“One of my regulars came over to the store and was like, ‘You know you’re getting slammed on Reddit right now? And I’m like, what are you talking about?,'” Chersevani says. The Reddit post amassed more than 100 comments making fun of and dissing the post. Chersevani says she also started getting DMs, including one calling her a “fucking loser.”
Screenshot from Reddit.
“People went bananas. Attacking me, attacking each other, like I caused all the issues for AI that ever happened,” she says.
{snip}
1 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
