Restaurants Are Using Sharpies Instead of AI To Reach Customers Tired of Fake-Looking Food Adverts

Businesses are choosing hand-drawn adverts over AI-generated imagery, with a Vancouver café using marker sketches of sandwiches and coffee to announce its rejection of the technology, CBC reported.

NaMì Vietnamese café's owner Kevin Thach told CBC the approach helped distinguish his business. The broadcaster's 9 November 2026 report also featured handwritten promotions from a No Frills supermarket in nearby Burnaby.

British Pubs Have Already Picked Up the Marker

The approach has British precedents. IBTimes UK reported on 28 August 2026 that The Salutation in Tynemouth used a handwritten notice rejecting AI-generated recruitment posts, while GOAT Nantwich in Cheshire paired an anti-AI message with a photograph of its burger.

For customers discussing restaurant advertising online, the distinction extends beyond how a poster looks: does the picture show the food being sold? Their comments describe individual preferences, rather than evidence of a wider boycott or lost sales.

In an r/AskUK discussion, user Upstairs-Hedgehog575 wrote: 'I know what a sandwich looks like, I want to know what your sandwich looks like.'

Another participant, callisstaa, offered a counterpoint: 'Personally if it's a decent pub and I like the quiz I'm not going to be put off by the quality of their poster.'

YouGov Finds Support for Disclosure of AI Actors

British polling supplies a separate measure of attitudes towards synthetic advertising. YouGov surveyed 2,012 UK adults on 6–7 July 2026 and found that 76% of respondents who had seen AI-generated actors in adverts disliked them.

Some 94% of Britons said companies should disclose their use. Those questions concerned synthetic performers, however, rather than food photographs, handwritten notices or every application of AI.

The debate over AI-generated art also reaches the people making promotional material. Meghan D'Mello, president of Canada's Association of Registered Graphic Designers, told CBC that job descriptions increasingly emphasised AI prompting and that design skills were being devalued.

D'Mello acknowledged that AI could streamline workflows but distinguished that assistance from designers' creativity. Her comments did not establish a figure for jobs lost in Canada or Britain.

Polaroid Takes Its Campaign to London

Camera maker Polaroid announced a Go Generation 3 campaign on 18 June 2026, including placements at London's King's Cross, Bethnal Green and Hackney. A related beach billboard in New York criticised data centres' water consumption.

Responding to that billboard in an r/antiai discussion, user Anxietoro wrote: 'That said I support this business motivated attack on AI :)'

Creative Bloq separately reported that around 350 submissions followed an unsolicited Parker pen concept and a subsequent creative challenge. Ten shortlisted advertisements appeared on a Times Square digital billboard, with their creators credited.

Neither the handwritten-business examples nor the campaign coverage establishes that rejecting AI advertising increases sales. The social discussions show individual reactions, including support for campaigns that participants also recognise as commercially motivated.

Businesses using automation face oversight questions, too. Japanese pizza chain PIZZA-LA recently paused its TikTok advertising after an unapproved promotional video ran.

Operator Four Seeds said staff had completed campaign setup without realising an automatic ad-generation and delivery feature was enabled. Its account did not establish precisely whether the tool generated new images, modified existing material or combined both.