- Parisian hot spot Folderol has become an unwilling TikTok phenomenon.
- The wine bar and ice cream parlor was forced to hire a bouncer to try and dispel crowds.
- One of the owners told Business Insider that the crowds of TikTokers had been scaring away regulars.
Paris may be one of the most Instagramable cities in the world, but one small bar in the city has had enough.
Folderol, which is both a wine bar and an ice cream parlor, is owned by husband and wife Jessica Yang and Robert Compagnon. The small, tableless haunt has amassed more than 95 million views on TikTok, which has led to a whole lot of unwanted attention.
The saga began with a shoutout from Dua Lipa, which transformed the bar into a viral phenomenon, Compagnon told Business Insider.
During an interview with Vogue France, the singer namechecked the venue as one of her favorite restaurants in Paris and shared a now-deleted Instagram picture of her sipping wine from Folderol's signature glasses.
While a shoutout from an international superstar like Dua Lipa would be a blessing for most restaurants, for Folderol it was the start of a nightmare.
TikTokers flooded the trendy spot, setting up on the road outside the bar with glasses of orange wine and olive oil-flavored ice cream.
"We don't have a terrace," Compagnon told BI. "It suddenly became this sort of this thing where people would just sit on the ground outside."
The online hype brought crowds, provoked the neighbors, and occasionally caused run-ins with the police. The queues of clout-chasers seeking photo opps also began scaring away the locals, Compagnon said.
"The issue with TikTok is that it attracted only one type of clientele and chased away all the others we had been building up over the past years," Compagnon said. The TikTokers were also a "very flighty clientele," as opposed to the loyal neighborhood locals, he added.
"Returning customers wouldn't return anymore. It kind of scares you when all you're left with is one type of clientele that scares away the others," he said.
The popularity quickly became too much to handle and Folderol had to start setting rules.
The owners banned people from eating and drinking on the road outside, put up a "no TikTok" sign, and even hired a bouncer to control the crowds.
The rules aimed to cut down the amount of "viral posters sitting outside eating a scoop of olive oil ice cream and a glass of orange wine not even taking any pleasure in it," Compagnon said.
But the bouncer, who prefers to be known as a "greeter," wasn't just to deter the TikTokers, Compagnon added.
"We had a lot of issues over the summer with crowds. It's a really quiet street, so as soon as it's past 9 p.m. and there's noise the neighbors were going crazy," he said. "The cops were coming because of the noise complaints."
The sudden online explosion came as a complete surprise to the couple running the trendy spot.
"We do extraordinarily little social media posting," Compagnon said. "Our presence is basically nonexistent."
The bar was also just not set up for the attention it received. The kitchen was too small to prep accordingly and staffers were overwhelmed by the demand and bored by the repetitive nature of service.
It's a double-edged sword, Compagnon said, who is not immune to the financial gain the viral success has brought the wine bar.
"It's like saying no to money," he said of his attempts to dispel the influencers. "We don't enforce it, really. It's just about trying to balance it."
Some of the attempts have also backfired, he said, adding that people have been keen to break the new rules. A TikTok video shot at Folderol captioned, "If you tell me not to do something I'll just want to do it more," demonstrates his point.
Compagnon says the crowds of social-media users have calmed down during the offseason, but even in early December, it appears the bar is not detached from its TikTok fame.
As a bartender lets me try some of Folderol's famous olive oil ice cream, a twenty-something hovering at the bar remarks: "Oh, this is the place from TikTok."
