Did LA's Great White Restaurant Segregate Asians?
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 21 Oct, 2025

A viral TikTok video depicting discriminatory seating by Great White restaurant prompts past patrons and staffers to come forward with corroboration.

A snippet from Cassidy Cho's viral TikTok video

TikTok has long been a go to place for sharing life hacks, cat videos, and viral dances. It can also be used for taking on racism establishments, it turns out. 

“am i tripping or are they being racist 😭😭😭😭” was the caption that accompanied Cassidy Cho’s viral September 27 video. 

She and her boyfriend were having brunch at the Australian-owned LA staple Great White when she noticed something that felt too like more than a coincidence.

The video pans across a stretch of tables located against a wall on the outskirts of the restaurant which are occupied only by Asian Americans.

“I don't know if it's just me, but they put all Asians in one corner...everybody is white in the main seating area” Cho narrates as yet another Asian couple is led to the remaining unoccupied table in the corner.

I’d like to start by addressing the obvious: Yes, a place literally named Great White has been accused of racism. The owners claim it’s a shark reference. 

Great White, located in West Hollywood

I’ll be honest, my knee-jerk reaction upon seeing the video was rage. It was hard to dispute what I was seeing with my own eyes, combined with the fact that Cho clearly felt strongly enough about what she was experiencing to make the post.

But I reminded myself how serious of an allegation this is. Maybe it was, in fact, a coincidence. Maybe Cho had gotten something wrong. Maybe the occupants of other tables actually did know each other and had asked to be seated in the same area. There would be plenty that we don't know. 

But what I do know is this: Being a person of color in this country requires being confronted with situations like this on a regular basis. It causes you to, unfortunately, expect the worst. 

From Personal Experience

These situations are seldom black and white…just like the AAPI customers they’ve relegated to the corner.

I’ll also be 100% honest: there have been moments when I played the race card, knowing full well that there was, say, a 50/50 chance that the way I was being treated was related to my identity.

While I was certain that I was experiencing injustice when it came to seating or service, it may have been the case that they would have been assholes to me regardless of my skin color. Maybe they just didn’t like my clothes? Or they couldn’t stand the sight of a confident short king. 

I’m thinking back to a time when a group of my friends and I were out on a Friday night and decided to make one last stop before heading home. We were hungry so I asked the bouncer of a sports bar if their kitchen was still open. 

“It is,” he replied. “But, unfortunately, I can’t let you in. You’re too inebriated.”

It was simply not true. In fact, out of the large group I was with, I had arguably had the least to drink. A couple of the folks in our group could hardly even stand.

So I asked if this applied to everyone.

“No,’ he said. “Just you. They can come in.”

As you may have guessed, I was the only person of color in the group.

I began pleading my case. I counted off the few beers I had had, a miniscule amount by the standards of any drinking establishment. But no dice. “He could just tell.”

Why was this happening? 

While he had not said anything explicitly racist during this interaction, to steal his own logic, I could just tell what was going on. 

So I asked outright: “Is it because I'm brown?”

I don’t know how I was expecting him to respond, or frankly, why I had bother asking. His mind was already made up.

I suppose I expected anger that I would accuse him of something so awful. Maybe the classic “I have Black friends” assurance. Or maybe a simple “No.”

Instead, he laughed as hard as he could in my face. “That’s a good one,” he said “In between guffaws.

I had previously had my suspicions. Now I had little doubt. 

The Fallout

I have personally never been to Great White though a Pakistani American friend of mine did dine there last month and eagerly reported sitting a table away from Justin Bieber. 

While she did not mention anything related to racism, it’s possible that she was too stricken with Bieber fever to notice.

Some might say that a single viral video is not enough to render a verdict off of, which is fair. But as it turns out, the viral video appears to have been the just tip of the iceberg here. 

When Cho’s video went viral, it was like a seal had been broken. Suddenly, others started coming forward with their own experiences of racism at Great White.

Past Great White patrons of various AAPI identities — Indian, Korean, Chinese — had stories about being seated in the exact same area. 

But even more damning were the testimonials from former staff who, unless they were lying, confirmed the worst.

“They are very direct about telling me to limit the amount of ethnic people that are coming in,” one former-server alleged of the restaurant’s management.

Another told a local news station that “We were instructed to tell people that we are at capacity when, you know, ‘certain’ demographics came in that they did not want in the restaurant.”

Social media

Social media has, for better or worse, changed the way that we deal with perceived instances of prejudices.

Just twenty years ago, when we didn’t each walk around with phone-sized recording studios in our pocket, an allegation of racism typically boiled down to a he said / she said. 

We now have a greater means to push back against injustice. Videos can capture the incident in question and social media can ensure that they spread like wildfire. 

The ability to post a negative Yelp review allows not simply for retribution, but the chance to save others like us from experiencing the same fate. And, of course, when these experiences are part of a pattern that various customers can attest to — like in this instance — the chorus becomes too loud for the establishment to simply ignore, 

But what we may see as justice or rectification or simply the consequences of one's actions, others are quick to label “cancel culture.” Or mob mentality. Or key board activism. 

Some will argue that the social media users are too quick to rush to judgment and deem one guilty until proven innocent. They may be wary of any verdict that’s rendered by “the court of public opinion.”

Some who have gotten away with discriminatory actions their whole lives are simply decrying “cancel culture” in hopes of hiding from the black light that will finally expose their wrongdoing.

But even if their own motives of the “cancel culture”-crying crowd are nefarious, it’s true that social media is an imperfect way to truly assess a situation. 

The very tactics that can be used to bring justice can be weaponized. “Review bombing,” which is when people band together to all leave negative reviews, can target establishments for their inclusive ideology. A restaurant that displays a pride flag may end up with one star on Yelp. 

Movies like Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, and the 2016 all-female Ghostbusters reboot debuted with abysmal user scores on Rotten Tomatoes even though the critics scores were much higher. This was likely the result of misogynists who had not actually seen the film but took issue with strong female leads. 

And sometimes, video clips that are taken out of context or do not depict the full story can claim the livelihoods of well-meaning people. 

The Verdict

This one does, after all, seem to be a pretty black and Great White case of discrimination. 

What happens next remains to be seen. 

Boycotts and protests are of course well underway. 

Meanwhile, there are those like far-right influencer Emily Wilson who took to social media to declare that “Now that I know they’re white supremacists, I will support them even more than I already do.”

The restaurant itself responded to the allegations with a flat denial:

“Any notion that we have mistreated customers or employees or seated people based on their ethnicity is absolutely outrageous and completely false. Everyone is welcome here.”

Maybe, if the restaurant is willing to acknowledge that there may have been merit to these allegations — whether institutional or the result of a few managers — they could start the process of rectifying them. But for now, it sounds like they will not even be looking into it. 

And maybe if for no reason other than fear of another viral TikTok video, restaurants with similarly discriminatory practices will make changes of their own.

And hopefully anyone who experiences discrimination will continue to remember that TikTok is for more than just cat videos.