Here's the tl;dr version:
These people decided to pull a prank/"satirical project" in which they promoted a fake farm-to-table restaurant over social media using all of the hardestcore of foodie buzzwords. Then when people went to check it out on the fake opening day, they found an empty space with a sign reading #stopfoodies2015.
On first glance, I thought this was a clever idea. And if the motivations had been silliness and good-spirited mockery of the current zeitgeist -- a la "HAHA. Sans serif fonts plus 'vaguely Nordic air of refinement' equals EPIC HYPE. Suck a dick, jags! " -- then I still would still be into it.
I should have been tipped off early on when the journalist refers to the whole scheme as satire. Things described as satire are almost never funny and almost always tedious.
And sure enough, it turns out that these people are trying to make a Statement. The article quotes the perpetrators: "’Lura’ is a statement project targeting the rising phenomenon of the elitist subculture of foodies.” They even use the actual word "statement".
Later in the article come further turds of insight:
“People didn’t come for the food,” the artists observed. They came to “discover” the next big restaurant, to stake their claim to future Instagram glory. “Foodie culture,” for Lura’s creators, is the transformation of dining into social climbing. “It’s food no longer just being something to sustain a life,” Lura’s creators said. “It's looking for the most exclusive, unique dishes, and then telling everybody that you had this thing online.”
First: how old are these kids that they think "foodie culture"transformed food into social climbing? Hot restaurants and people bragging about going to hot restaurants aren't exactly nascent trends.
Second: could everybody do me a big favor and not use "culture" to describe things that are not cultures? People being pretentious about food is not "foodie culture", much like people taking pictures of themselves with their cellular phones isn't "selfie culture". Kids like looking at themselves; people are weird about what they eat. These aren't distinct subcultures, and they aren't "rising phenomen[a]". They're just well-established personality traits. Everybody calm the fuck down.
OK, so at this point, you're thinking the phantom restaurateurs are going to be the most annoying characters in this story. BUT THEN THERE'S THIS BITCH:
"....some took offense at the parody. One Instagram user commented, 'Not amusing, making satire of those who care about what goes in [their] bodies.'"
Take a good couple-three seconds to just really hate this person before we move on. Concentrate yourself on it.
There is no more narcissistic phrase in the entirety of English than "I care about what goes in my body." Not even "A lot of people don't get my sense of humor." Not even "My political views are too nuanced and complex for the two-party system." Reasonable people just say "I try to eat healthy" or something similar. People who start talking about what "goes in my body" think corn syrup is a political conspiracy directly targeted at the sacred ground of themselves. People like this think they deserve to outlive your grandchildren. People like this think everyone wants to hear about what they're not eating. Mark my words: this bitch is insufferable.
But then the article sort of redeems itself by showing you a picture of the little building where the fake restaurant wasn't located. It's cute, right? I hope somebody opens another real restaurant there someday. And it could have an upstairs! I love a restaurant with an upstairs.