Burger King mom, seen running a kitchen alone, has been fired

Show is a Burger King restaurant location in Philadelphia, Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

A Burger King employee who recently went viral for single-handedly running a busy fast-food kitchen has now been fired.

The TikTok video of Nykia Hamilton working alone at a Columbia, S.C., Burger King garnered 23,000 likes after she was seen singlehandedly preparing meals, ringing up customers and cleaning.

A Burger King spokesperson told CTVNews.ca Sunday that Hamilton had worked alone in the restaurant for less than three hours on the day the video was recorded.

“No Team Member should ever be left to run a restaurant alone, even for a short period of time,” the spokesperson wrote. “That’s not how we operate, and we’re disappointed that our policy, which requires more than one Team Member to work per shift, wasn’t followed.”

The mother of three has since been fired, the fast food restaurant confirmed.

According to Burger King, employee terminations are handled by the franchisees who own and operate the restaurant. In this case, the franchisee confirmed that Hamilton was no longer employed due to “repeated attendance issues.”

“While we can’t share more on individual personnel matters, we’re focused on making sure every restaurant, whether company or franchise-run, has the staffing and support needed to take care of our Team Members and deliver the kind of experience our Guests expect,” the spokesperson said.

At the time of this writing, Hamilton has raised more than US$122,000 on a GoFundMe page.