“Nut graph,” “stringer,” and “kicker” — these are entirely serious pieces of journalism jargon that are also completely ridiculous. But one piece of jargon has been on repeat in my head over the last few months as the media ecosystem falls apart thanks to short attention spans, AI, and private equity: Shoe leather.
Shoe leather reporting, an admittedly ableist term, dates back to the days of the 19th century, describing the practice of venturing outside and pounding the pavement to produce a story. It is conducting face-to-face interviews with cooks, driving through a neighborhood and stopping when you see a building permit, going to a bar and talking to restaurant workers after their shifts, and going to a restaurant where you spend your own money and report on what you see.
This type of journalist craves adventure and excitement. They’re unafraid of leaving their homes or offices to meet with community stakeholders. If they err on a story, the face-to-face way they interact with their sources and communities forces them to face accountability in person rather than hiding from criticism behind the four walls of their home or office. Shrinking readership has led to newsroom cuts, pushing shoe leather journalism onto life support. The C-suite thinks it’s more efficient and cheaper to ask ChatGPT or Claude for community insights, if they ever valued them at all. The void it creates has given way to an explosion of social media aggregators to cover all facets of news, including restaurant recommendations.
Lately, my social media algorithm is suggesting a new breed of restaurant informant: The real estate agent. This new type of influencer has doubled down on food content to establish neighborhood credibility, build prolific audiences, and to attract the attention of potential clients. A strong social media presence is increasingly integral to an agent’s success, with the National Association of Realtors even devoting a webpage to social media guidance. Real estate agents are pouncing as more folks, especially those under 30, receive their local news — including restaurant news — via social media.
With varying degrees of success, agents — the same ones driving across the city to open houses and memorizing school demographic information — are delivering news about restaurant openings, closings, and trends, often allying with restaurant PR reps. It’s an agent’s job to sell buyers on the neighborhoods they work in, and trendy restaurants are amenities.
A scene at the James Beard Awards post-party held in June at Chicago’s Union Station became the personification of this idea. There, I saw a trio of men dressed in tuxedos exchange hugs and pleasantries: Andrés Clavero, co-owner of Michelin-starred Galit; Chip Broussard, owner of Kinship, one of Chicago’s largest public relationship firms; and Allan Perales, founder of Kain Real Estate.
I’ve interviewed Clavero multiple times and worked with Broussard on dozens of stories. Both had the same question for me: “How do you know Allan?” I met Perales in May while interviewing him for the story you’re reading. Perales, whose focus is commercial real estate, started his firm earlier in 2026 and counts several restaurant owners as clients. He’s been quoted in local media and carved a niche within the hospitality industry while posting videos with a mix of topics. An Instagram from early July described how he and a colleague walked into Beaumont’s, a newly renovated bar and restaurant in Lincoln Park where getting a reservation is tough. In the video, he describes how he finagled a table by asking the host for a reserved table and promising they would quickly finish their meal before the reservation maker arrived. His posts are a mix of advice for restaurants on how to operate and showing off spaces for landlords.
“If I was doing this for views, or, if I was a 20-year-old girl influencer that just does B-roll for paid ads or whatever the heck they get monetized, they probably wouldn't, because they don't want to get canceled"
Another agent, Tommy Choi, was also at Beaumont’s the same night as Perales, and the chance encounter marked the first time the two had met (Choi made a post on Beaumont’s earlier in June). Choi takes a different approach to his video content, sitting in his makeshift studio at home with front-facing video, talking about restaurants that matter to him, occasionally diving into the history of a space or sharing a short bio for the owners or chefs. It’s not the deep dive of an investigation, nor is it a shallow clip that relies on formulaic special effects.
Like Perales, Choi has become a bit of a restaurant insider by growing a network of industry friends who could easily be conflated with journalistic sources. Choi’s family arrived in America in the ‘70s, with his uncle moving to Bolivar, Ohio. Eventually, more family arrived from Seoul, and they ended up in Chicago, where his grandfather would wash dishes at a Korean restaurant. His parents opened a dry cleaning business on the North Side, and that helped Choi develop an appreciation for small businesses and an aversion to the nasty behavior of some customers when they leave angry reviews on platforms such as Yelp. He positions his videos as balancing the scales of online content while claiming Eddie Huang, Anthony Bourdain, Chuck Klosterman, Dave Chappelle, and even Kendrick Lamar as influences.
“It has fueled my real estate business, which is really cool,” Choi says. “I always say great marketing makes sales softer. And somehow, through a screen, people build trust. And then,when it comes to the largest purchase of their life, they're like, ‘Hey, maybe I should talk to this guy. I liked that Italian beef he had the other day.’”
Choi calls himself the “No. 1 Asian real estate agent in Chicago.” I’m not sure if there are rankings, nor do I (as a South Asian) have a good grasp of who counts as an Asian anymore. Choi initially focused much of his content on the Korean communities within Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. He’s since begun posting more content from other Chicago areas in part because other restaurant owners have seen how much attention and engagement he’s received with nearly 45,000 followers. I ask him about being pigeonholed as a Korean content maker and about the city’s issues with segregation and how food coverage often reinforces that issue. Choi doesn’t mind if he triggers folks by mentioning race or ethnicity in his clips, saying, “It's so super important, especially being that we're in one of the most segregated cities in the world.”
“If I was doing this for views, or, if I was a 20-year-old girl influencer that just does B-roll for paid ads or whatever the heck they get monetized, they probably wouldn't, because they don't want to get canceled,” Choi says.
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Heidi Hageman, principal at H2 Public Relations (their roster includes chef Paul Kahan’s One Off Hospitality, Michelin-starred Cariño, and trendy steakhouse Maple & Ash), calls Choi a “gifted storyteller,” and says her firm reaches out when they have an angle that would resonate with his personal brand. He shares examples of Korean restaurants like Mister Tiger and TenGoku Aburiya.
Choi and Perales caught the eye of Chicago chef Won Kim of Kimski, a Korean Polish restaurant on the South Side in Bridgeport. “He has a really good format and presentation with his content,” says Kim, who isn’t known for being publicly effusive. “Honestly, like, when I, when I first saw it, it like kept coming into my algorithm, and I was like, ‘Who the fuck is this guy?’” Kim set out to meet Choi, a fellow Korean American, and the two convened for drinks at Electric Funeral, a bar not too far away.
Kim hasn’t taken to Perales’s approach, which feels like more of an aggressive ploy to lure clients. His conflicts of interest aren’t disclosed, and the motivations behind the videos aren’t clear. Are agent recs solely based on growing their customer base? Is the content aimed at getting free food and prime reservations? Kim replied to Perales’s Beamont video, questioning the agent’s acumen. During our interview, Kim said it rubbed him the wrong way when he saw agents make videos soliciting interest from new tenants, recording content from restaurants that are still open and operating.
“Realtors are looking to interject themselves between homeowners and everything else that can yield them new sources of commissions, from the sale of a home to restaurant reco..."
While many diners have taken to following influencers in order to be the first to be in the know about openings, not everyone is enthused about this growing trend. New restaurants can fuel gentrification, increasing rents and mortgages that make neighborhoods unaffordable to longtime residents. While at Eater, numerous real estate agents emailed me, asking if I could somehow send information about new restaurants to them first. They promised some sort of compensation if I sent them information. I never responded.
This phenomenon isn’t just specific to Chicago. There are hundreds of agents in Dallas; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and in the DMV area filling its own social media accounts with news and hot takes about restaurants.
Facebook is another platform that seems to be crumbling without local journalists to support it. Regardless of the network’s future, Moshe Tammsot continues to operate his forum, True West Loop, a community that includes many trendy Chicago restaurants. On any given day, readers will see Tammsot take a swipe at a real estate agent. He believes they’ve infiltrated many phases of everyday life, including local community government.
“Realtors are looking to interject themselves between homeowners and everything else that can yield them new sources of commissions, from the sale of a home to restaurant reco, a realtor’s hand can always be found in your pocket,” Tammsot says.
Tammsot, rightfully, points out that agents are often the ones organizing community Facebook groups and posting local news, gaining a following for being a local expert, and controlling the conversation; a kind of self-appointed gatekeeper without qualifications, ethics, or standards. It's pretty much the same criticism that the “girl influencers” that Choi referenced earlier receive. But with a more expensive pantsuit collection.
