‘One unchecked post can undermine years of work’ - Lumière owner warns hospitality over AI risks
Imagine coming back from holiday to discover an article online telling everybody your restaurant had closed.
That was the shocking reality for husband-and-wife team Jon and Helen Howe at Michelin-starred Lumière in Cheltenham.
As hospitality businesses continue to try and find ways to mitigate against the economic pressures they are currently facing, artificial intelligence is becoming a more commonly used tool.
Successful implementations have included using the technology to help when it comes to reservation systems, creating staff rotas, or assessing trends within diner habits to help with marketing.
However, an area which needs to be particularly carefully managed is when creating written content with large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
For businesses, LLMs can offer a good way to streamline and save time to help create social posts or web articles.
But, as Lumière have discovered, when managed incorrectly, this can have significant negative consequences.
Inaccurate AI-generated post about Lumière
Lumière was opened by chef Jon Howe and his wife Helen in January 2009 and was first awarded a Michelin star in 2023, an accolade it has since retained.
Despite their long-standing reputation in the area, as well as ongoing success, Jon and Helen were left shocked when they stumbled upon an article online saying their restaurant had closed.
“Jon had got to work after we'd had a week's holiday,” Helen explained.
“Occasionally he Googles the restaurant, to see if there's any new reviews or anything going on. He probably does it once a week.
“He came across this blog post put out by The Nook on Five, John Burton-Race's restaurant here in Cheltenham, saying how much they'd loved Lumière and how sad that they were that it had closed.
“And then the article positioned themselves as a natural successor to fill the fine dining gap in Cheltenham. I was like, that’s interesting.”
AI cited as cause of issue
Helen subsequently contacted The Nook, who updated the wording in the article and later removed it altogether, as well as issuing an apology via social media, citing AI as the cause of the issue.
The article itself had been written by an LLM. For those not familiar, the process sees a human input a set of instructions to the LLM, which will then produce what it is asked. The more specific the prompt, the more accurate the response. While the technology is evolving all the time, it is not yet foolproof and does make mistakes.
“They were relatively quick to take the original blog post down and blame the AI,” Helen said.
“But it doesn't really wash, to be honest with you, because there still needs to be a person behind the prompt to ask the computer, to produce the blog post in the first instance.
“Also, it's then that person's responsibility to proofread it before you publish it.
“It's not a competition or rivalry thing, it's just that they didn't check it.”
Helen believes the post was live for around a week before they spotted it, something she feels has had a negative impact both financially and emotionally on her, Jon and the business, as they attempt to ensure everybody is aware their restaurant is still very much open.
“Their response, to be honest with you, has been limited,” Helen said, of her communication with The Nook on Five.
“There was a little Instagram apology, but that's the only sort of real formal apology that we've had.
“They just want to pretend it never happened, which is massively frustrating because it's left us with this huge mess that we now have to sort out.
“We've had to employ the services of an SEO-accredited AI specialist, because once it's all on the internet, it's really hard to get rid of the memories of it.
“So even though the original blog post was changed and corrected, the computer world or internet still knows that it was there.
“The specialist also gave us a little bit of insight into probably how it happened to start with.
“I think there is a theatre which was named Lumiere, which did close in 2024. The AI just picked that name up and because the computers didn't read it like a human would read it, they just put all words together.
“It just made it up.”
Negative impact on footfall
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Discussing the impact on the business, Helen added: “We've noticed. Normally we're pretty much steadily fully booked. We’re not very big, but the last couple of weeks has definitely been lighter than normal.
“Easter, bank holidays, there are probably other factors, but I don't know how you would even start to quantify it.
“But after 17 years of being in the same place, we definitely feel that it's had an effect.
“And it's all anybody's talking about, so I'm wasting so much time trying to undo it and then explaining it to multiple people.
“We're a small business. It's not what we want to be doing. We just want to be like doing our thing.”
Lumière’s success has been built on word of mouth and reputation within the local area, with this incident seeing them pay a social media influencer for the first time to come in and promote their restaurant, to spread the word about the incorrect closure news.
Helen said: “We don't have any choice, do we? We have to protect our business.
“I need to protect my staff.
“Everybody needs to know that we are very much open for business as usual.
“It's just crazy. It's been a really mad couple of weeks and it's just so frustrating.
“We're all busy enough, we just don't need it getting in the way of everything else we've got to do.”
She added: “I honestly don't believe that it was intentionally malicious.
“I don't think it targeted us, and I don't think anybody meant to say we were closed. I think it's just really negligent.”
Response from The Nook on Five
The Staff Canteen contacted The Nook on Five for a response.
They issued the following statement: “Unfortunately, the inaccuracy in the blog occurred when an AI tool, used within our business, automatically generated a draft and published it directly to our website before it had time to go through our usual review process.
“That oversight is entirely on us.
"As soon as we became aware of the mistake, we removed the blog and issued a public apology the same day across our social media channels.
“Since then, we have been in direct communication with Lumière to help rectify the situation, and we are reviewing our internal processes to ensure this does not happen again.
"As a family-run, independent restaurant ourselves, we are keen to support fellow independents and regularly recommend Lumière to both tourists and local diners who visit The Nook on Five."
Important message for hospitality owners
Helen is aware the rise in AI usage is only going to continue, but hopes this incident can help protect hospitality businesses in future by shining a light on potential pitfalls.
“Everybody is obviously more and more stretched and not everybody has the ability to employ a marketing manager or somebody who will do their social media for them,” Helen said.
“AI is then kind of filling that gap.
“But I think what people need to be really careful of is the content that the AI produces. You need to read it and take responsibility for it as if you'd wrote it itself with a pen.
“You are responsible for it and at least need to proofread it.
“I know everybody's busy, I know everybody's under the pump and short staffed and I get it.
“But you have to be so careful, especially when you're naming other businesses.
“I think with more people using AI more and more, you have to be so careful what you're putting out there.
“Small independents, we work so hard to build the trust of our customers and just one unchecked post can undermine years of work and just cost so much time to resolve it.”
She added: “We're really fortunate we've got a pretty good social media following. We've got quite a big database of our customers, and we've been established for a long time.
“But if you were in a different position, didn’t have our platform, then it could be quite different, especially if they didn't pick it up so quickly.
“I think if Jon hadn't have noticed, then it would probably still be live now.”
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