Long John Silver’s, the nautical seafood purveyor, has a fresh wind in its sails—and it’s (mostly) thanks to Instagram Reels.
In early June, the food content creator Kishia Moore (@eateatwithkeysh) posted an Instagram eating video with her Long John Silver’s order. “They out here talking about who keeping Long John Silver’s in business,” Moore muses in the clip as she loads up a piece of fried fish with malt vinegar. “Who keeping Long John Silver’s in business? Me!” The video has now been viewed more than three million times and amassed nearly 13,000 comments.
Moore’s video seems to have inspired a legion of other creators to make their own Long John Silver’s videos—many of which are notching tens of thousands of likes. According to Laura Ellis, chief marketing officer at Long John Silver’s, the videos have been completely organic, but the trend is resulting in actual performance gains for the chain.
The trend is a testament to the fact that even the unlikeliest of brands can find a niche on social media. Now, Long John Silver’s will have to see if it can keep the fish fan base’s attention after the organic content dies down.
Who is keeping Long John Silver’s in business?
To put it mildly, Long John Silver’s has a dubious reputation.
“We have Long John Silver’s, which is what people regard as the worst fast food in America,” reads the opening line of a video from the food creator @lukefoods_. Another video by @omarthecritic starts, “Who is keeping Long John Silver’s in business? They’re always empty, and they’re a fast food chain that sells seafood.”
In fact, the query “Who is keeping Long John Silver’s in business” has circled the internet for almost a decade. One Reddit thread asking the question dates back to 2018 (answers included “AARP” and “The Pope”) and multiple long-form YouTube videos have been made under that exact title.
But Long John Silver’s clearly has an audience. The chain has been in business since 1969, and its heyday was in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when it boasted more than 1,000 national locations. Like many fast food restaurants, Long John Silver’s footprint has declined dramatically in recent years (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic). Its store count dropped from 900 in 2019 to 479 at the end of 2025.
Despite the store closures, LJS’s owner since 2022, Four Oaks Partners, says that the brand is actually on an upward trajectory. In a statement to Fast Company earlier this year, Ellis, the CMO, said the brand has seen 16 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth and is remodeling hundreds of stores. Systemwide sales have also grown, from about $400 million in 2022 to $430 million in 2025.
Clearly, there’s a fair number of Americans who are interested in buying fried shrimp and fish and chips from a chain. And they’re finally making themselves known online.
Long John Silver’s social media moment
A search for “Long John Silver’s” on both TikTok and Instagram will yield dozens of eating videos (also known as “mukbangs”) from recent weeks. While mukbang content usually centers on more standard, craveable fare—like noodles, burgers, and chicken tenders—these influencers are digging into fish filets with tartar sauce, fried pickles, and hush puppies.
“The @eateatwithkeysh video is one of our favorites,” Ellis says. “Her original post was completely organic. We saw it taking off and reached out to partner with her to help amplify it on Instagram. After that, we started seeing more guests share their own organic Long John Silver’s food reviews. Those creators visited and posted on their own, without being paid by the brand.”
In most of these videos, the creator will inevitably bring up how “hated” Long John Silver’s is on a national scale, or question how it still exists, before ultimately admitting that the food’s not half bad. Long John Silver’s seems to be taking the lighthearted abuse in stride. Under one video, the brand commented, “‘Pretty okay!’ Put it on a billboard!” Its own Instagram bio reads, “We still exist” and “Find a location (kinda) near you.” The comment sections of these mukbangs are typically flooded with users admitting that they’ve long held a secret fondness for Long John Silver’s.
“Honestly, we were late to the party on social,” Ellis says. “But as we started showing up more, we realized our fans had been talking about Long John Silver’s the whole time without us. People have real memories of Long John Silver’s, like the hush puppies or asking for extra crumbs, and a lot of them still come in every week. But when they would post about loving us, inevitably someone else would say ‘Wait, Long John Silver’s still exists?’ So that’s why our bio says: ‘We still exist.’ It’s basically us backing up our fans.”
All the online chatter is paying off. Ellis says that the location in Yucaipa, California, where @eateatwithkeysh filmed her original video has seen increased sales since it was posted. Meanwhile, from June 21 through September 25, Long John Silver’s content generated 4.8 million views on Instagram, with 3.8 million coming organically—a 500% increase in organic views compared with the previous period.
“And those numbers only reflect content on our own Instagram,” Ellis says. “They don’t include the millions of additional views coming from creators, reviewers, and guests posting on their own channels.”
Whether Long John Silver’s can continue to build its own audience in the coming months remains to be seen, but its moment of social media stardom seems to have finally proven that there’s a reason it’s quietly stayed in business for almost six decades.