Kindness-focused coffee shop hits unsuspecting pedestrians with 'drive-by' compliments

When most people hear the term “drive-by,” the word “kindness” doesn’t usually follow it.

A Texas and California-based coffee chain dedicated to making a positive impact is flipping the script through its drive-by kindness videos that have become a hit on TikTok.

How it works: It's as simple as saying something nice to a total stranger. Some of the random compliment bombs dropped on unsuspecting pedestrians:

“Do you work at a restaurant? Because you’re serving looks right now!”

“Do you ever get tired?” (“Of walking?” asked the woman.) “Of being so beautiful!”

“Did you drop your crown? Because you’re a literal king!”

A HAPPY ENDING: Dozens of people said they would go to her book signing — they didn't. Thousands of strangers made sure that wasn't the end of the story.

La La Land Kind Cafe, a kindness-focused organic cafe chain that first launched in Texas in 2019, began posting drive-by kindness videos on TikTok in November 2020. The side project was the cafe's way of continuing to spread joy even as fewer people visited cafes and other public indoor places during the pandemic, founder Francois Reihani said, “My team and I wanted to do the same thing we were doing in our stores, but do it out in the communities,” Reihani, who employees former and current foster youths in his cafes, told USA TODAY.

Drive-by kindness: How it works

The random acts of drive-by kindness are on-brand for La La Land's business model – it's a company so dedicated to normalizing kindness toward strangers that its employees tell customers they love them as they exit their cafes.

"They're very strong words you're normally only used to hearing from a very close loved one," Reihani said of the coffee shop's out-of-the-ordinary practice. "The world needs to hear them because there should be a love between random human beings. We all go through the same things in life."

La La Land still fully operates as brick-and-mortar cafes. But when its content creation team occasionally takes to the roads to serve up kindness, the recipients’ reactions are typically the same: a huge grin, an appreciative chuckle – such as the police officer who was told he had the right to remain handsome – or a look of disbelief that a complete stranger could be so kind.

“I love you!” a complimented man once shouted as he continued on his way.

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When the business's drive-by kindness side project started in 2020, La La Land’s content creator, Jeremiah Sabado, whipped out his phone as his colleague shouted kind and encouraging words to strangers on the street.

“He nonchalantly posted it on TikTok, and we woke up the next morning to a million-something views and the thing going viral,” Reihani said.

“At the end of the day, we're all human beings, we're all connected in a certain way,” he said of his company’s mission to spread joy to strangers both inside and outside cafes.

La La Land Kind Cafe has continued sharing kind, unexpected messages with strangers from car windows even as the height of the pandemic winded down. The random compliment videos have since amassed over a billion views on TikTok as of 2022, according to Reihani.

“I think it's our generation’s duty to kind of take this upon ourselves to bring people a lot closer together," he said.

'It'll always stand out to me'

Dallas resident Francesca Schell, a recipient of La La Land Kind Cafe’s random acts of kindness, said she felt like a mess after a tough day at work in the spring of 2021.

Schell stood outside of the law firm where she had recently started working and mulled over some negative feedback she’d gotten from an attorney.

“I think whenever we’re criticized, especially in a job or when we have someone we look up to, we tend to kind of make that a part of ourselves, it tends to just drag us down,” she told USA TODAY.

An unexpected compliment turned it all around.

A car drove up to the curb, startling Schell. The friendly passenger, a La La Land Kind Cafe employee, told her, “You look so put together!” Schell recalled.

“It hit home in a really good way,” she said. “It’s not something that happens a lot – that a random stranger gives you a compliment, especially one that feels quite genuine, so I think it'll always stand out to me because of that.”

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