Del Johnson watched from Florida as confetti fell on her son, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and his teammates after the Philadelphia Eagles routed the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX.
The Eagles safety’s mother was in Cocoa Village, Florida, not New Orleans for the big game. She was there because she also had something to celebrate — the opening of her second restaurant. However, the celebratory mode was short-lived due to an influx of negative Yelp reviews for Johnson’s other establishment, Kings Grill in Rockledge, Florida.
The spike in poor reviews began shortly after Gardner-Johnson took aim at Chiefs star Travis Kelce.
“Should’ve stayed with that thick s— ,” Gardner-Johnson captioned an Instagram Stories post. The caption seemed to reference Kelce’s former romance with Kayla Nicole, who attended this past Sunday’s big game and celebrated the Eagles victory on the Caesars Superdome turf.
Fans of singer Taylor Swift, who are often referred to as “Swifties,” appeared to be responsible for at least the initial stream of bad Google reviews and negative Yelp reviews for the Kings Grill. Swift has made numerous appearances at Chiefs games over the past two seasons and is currently dating Kelce.
“I have friends who were sending me the screenshots,” Delatron Johnson told TMZ Sports. “They were going, ‘Oh my god, look at this!’ And the first thing everyone said was, ‘the Swifties have attacked.’
“Yes, we’ve seen all the reviews. The joke is really on the Swifties and everyone entertaining the reviews because Kings Grill is closed.”
The unfavorable reviews were later removed and Yelp placed an “unusual activity alert” on the restaurant’s page which “temporarily disabled the posting of content.”
“This business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on news. While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events,” the post read.
A Yelp spokesperson added that “moderators” would eventually “clean up the page so that it reflects firsthand consumer experiences.”
“For Yelp to remain a useful resource to the community, reviews must be based on a genuine, firsthand experience with the business,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Due to the increased activity we detected on the business page, Yelp’s User Operations team worked quickly to temporarily disable the posting of content to the page and placed an Unusual Activity Alert on Tuesday, February 11. When we see the activity dramatically decrease or stop, our moderators will clean up the page so that it reflects firsthand consumer experiences.”
Some Eagles fans took notice of the flood of negative reviews Johnson’s restaurant received and showed their support by leaving a considerable number of positive reviews for the establishment.
Supporters of other NFL teams also came to Johnson’s aid.
“Saints fan here, thank y’all for getting CJ a ring. Kinda sad that people are trying to attack this place because the Chiefs are sorry. I’m sure the food and service here are great though so gonna easy 5 star. Go birds I guess,” a New Orleans Saints fan wrote. Gardner-Johnson spent the first three years of his NFL career with the Saints.
A Las Vegas Raiders fan suggested the restaurant had top-notch service. “Service was on point thank you! Food was on point thank you! Ambiance was on point thank you! #RAAAIIIDERSSSS,” the Raiders fan wrote.
