'A miracle happened': How a visit from TikToker Keith Lee changed 7 Phoenix restaurants
It's been over a month since Keith Lee, a former MMA fighter and current social media food critic with 17 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, announced his plan to visit to Arizona on Feb. 21.
Lee's videos, which feature him eating takeout food in his car and rating it in real time, have garnered over 700 million likes on TikTok. Dubbed "The Keith Lee" effect by Bon Appetit, the surge of customers that flood into small restaurants following a visit can completely change the trajectory of the business, for better or worse.
While in Arizona, Lee visited a total of seven restaurants across Phoenix and Mesa. We checked in with the businesses to see what kind of impact his visit made on their businesses.
'A miracle had happened, and we just wanted to prepare for it'
When Juanderful Tacos owner Juan Robles heard about the video, he was sitting in church with his wife on a Friday night.
"She got a notification on her phone from TikTok and when I looked over at her, her face was pale. She looked over at me and just showed me the phone, and it said, 'Keith Lee tagged you in a post'," Robles said. "I was sitting there in church, and I just started crying."
Robles called Lee's TikTok video a "miracle." He knew it was the beginning of a major turning point in Juanderful Tacos' story, but what exactly that change would look like was still uncertain.
After church he and his wife drove by the restaurant. It was an hour before closing time, and only about 30 minutes after the TikTok was posted, but Robles said the restaurant was absolutely packed.
The couple stayed at the restaurant until 2 a.m. prepping salsas and aguas frescas for the next day. And by 7 a.m. Saturday morning, Robles' wife was back at the restaurant preparing even more, while he went shopping for ingredients and supplies.
"We honestly only had like, maybe less than $1,000 in the business checking account, just because that's kind of the money that we were managing on a week-to-week. I ended up spending over $1,500 just getting ready for the day. I over drafted the bank account, because I was like, I want to be ready. I don't want to run out of things. And if we do run out of things, I just want to get to the end of the day," Robles said.
Robles shared the sentiment in an Instagram video, which Lee reposted to his story that morning. And Robles' big risk paid off: the line was out the door the entire day, and all of the inventory was sold by closing time.
"For a moment, there was a little bit of doubt. Like oh man, what if I'm making a mistake? But you know, we're very faith oriented and we trusted in God that a miracle had happened, and we just wanted to prepare for it," Robles said.
A few weeks after the video was posted, business has continued to boom at Juanderful Tacos. And there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon.
"Right now, our slowest day was our best day a year ago," Robles said.
Focusing on quality to keep customer retention was very important to Robles from the beginning.
"The day after the post was made, I gathered my team and I told them, 'Look, a lot of the people that are coming, they're coming because of the post. So don't get caught up seeing all the order tickets stacked on top of each other.' Because at the end of the day, if we don't give the customer the quality that they're coming in for, you know, the quality that Keith said in his video, they're not going to come back," Robles said.
He said he's already getting used to seeing new regulars from the last couple of weeks, including some who are on "stamp card streaks."
Some of the other restaurants that Lee visited are experiencing similar surges. Instagram posts by Republica Empanada stated that the restaurant ran out of food multiple times in the days following Lee's visit due to the incredibly high volume of customers. Myungrang Hotdog also posted on Instagram that they "have been extremely busy" following Lee's visit to the restaurant.
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Curiosity, rather than a great review, helped Hana's and Ace of Wingz
For Hana's, a small food truck in the Scottsdale area, Lee's review was slightly vaguer. He abstained from rating some of the items he bought because he doesn't like sweets, though his wife and sister enjoyed the snoballs.
But regardless of what Lee himself said or how he ranked the treats, Hana’s owner Alan Bell has banked on an uptick in curiosity following the viral TikTok video.
“It had a lot of people coming by to see for themselves," Bell said. "You know, ‘Just because Keith doesn’t like sweets, I want to see it for myself,’ and I appreciate that.”
Bell started selling snoballs and other snacks in Arizona just last year, so to see a dedicated fan base already forming, with help from Lee’s video, means the world to him and his business.
“There was one or two days where there was really a big line. It got so busy I couldn’t even take a picture or a video of it,” Bell said.
As a couple of weeks have passed, Bell said business has calmed down a bit, but he’s still seeing consistently higher foot traffic and interaction on social media thanks to the lingering Keith Lee effect.
At Ace of Wingz, business has been busy as ever despite a low rating from Lee, as the restaurant has shown in several Instagram posts.
"All the news critics at my restaurant today, lots of successful restaurant owners and people who loved my food that's just hearing about me for the first time today. Most importantly the love and support from the decent people in Arizona and those are the only ones whose opinions matter.... Over 3 million people know who I am and all publicity is good publicity apparently," wrote Ace of Wingz in an Instagram caption on Feb. 29.
Hope's Frybread and Jewel's Bakery are happy to share their food with a national audience
Unlike many other restaurant owners in Phoenix, Hope Peshlakai of Hope's Frybread did not reach out to Lee when she heard he was bringing his family to Arizona.
“I thought, cool things like that don’t really happen, so why bother?" she said. "But we did get tagged a lot by people. I thought, maybe he’s going to see this, maybe not. We really don’t even know what’s going to happen until you see the review.”
When Lee released his video about Hope’s Frybread, it was late at night on a Saturday, leaving the restaurant in an unusual situation. While some restaurants see a boom in business immediately upon opening the next morning, Hope’s Frybread is closed on Sundays, so Peshlakai had no idea what to expect on Monday.
She said that while Monday was a good business day, it wasn’t “bonkers” until the following Friday and Saturday.
“I feel like it’s largely thanks to our local media, kind of shining light on what he did. He was the initial push, but then different influencers will come by, or different publications or TV stations. It's kind of like a domino effect,” Peshlakai said.
But even more than the influx of customers, Peshlakai said the most exciting thing to her, “hands down” was being able to showcase and represent Native American cuisine in front of a national audience, including Lee’s 16 million TikTok followers.
“There were some Natives in the comments that were saying this is awesome, the fact that he tried a Navajo burger and fry bread. I'm actually five and a half hours from my hometown, but had I been on the reservation, you know, not many folks like him come there. But I'm so grateful that I'm able to be in this urban setting and he stumbled upon us, and he was able to try Navajo food,” Peshlakai said.
Lee also visited Jewel's Bakery and Cafe, a dedicated gluten-free brunch restaurant, after sharing that his sister is gluten-free. He rated most of the items around 7 out of 10 stars, which as one commenter wrote, is equal to even more for a gluten-free restaurant.
"It's rewarding to see the hard work my team and I have put in is being recognized on a national level! We hope this brings light to others that you can be conscious of the food you serve in this industry and still bring unique and tasty meals to an underserved community," owner Julie Moreno wrote in a text message to The Republic.
And like the other restaurants Lee visited in Phoenix, Moreno said, "the Keith Lee effect is real." And it's in full force at Jewel's.
Jewel's Bakery and Cafe was already an extremely popular brunch spot in the Arcadia neighborhood, but Moreno said her team is now working even harder than before to keep up with the new wave of customers after the video was posted. She said she's hoping to franchise and open additional Valley locations soon to better serve the gluten-free community all over the state.
All the Arizona restaurants Keith Lee visited
While some of the initial hype from Lee's TikTok videos has died down, the restaurants he visited are still seeing larger daily crowds. Juanderful Tacos has hired additional staff to help meet the demand, while the owner of Jewel's Bakery looks to franchising.
In his video for Hana's food truck, Lee said, "My tastebuds are not the end all be all. If you want to go try something, regardless of what I say, please go try it."
Details: Ace of Wingz, 8052 N. 19th Ave., Phoenix. aceofwingz.com.
Details: Hana's Food Truck. Check social media for location. @hanas__az on Instagram. facebook.com/hanaspdx.
Details: Hope's Frybread,144 S. Mesa Dr., Suite E, Mesa. 480-465-2666, hopesfrybread.com.
Details: Jewel's Bakery and Cafe, 4041 E. Thomas Road, Suite 101, Phoenix. 602-714-5243, jewelsbakeryandcafe.com.
Details: Juanderful Tacos, 3650 W. Camelback Road, Suite 1, Phoenix. juanderfultacos.com.
Details: Myungrang Hotdog, 1832 W. Broadway Road, Suite 103, Mesa. 998-877-6655, myungrangamerica.com.
Details: Republica Empanada, 204 E. First Ave., Mesa. 480-969-1343, republicaempanada.com.
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Reach the reporter at endia.fontanez@gannett.com. Follow @EndiaFontanez on X, formerly Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix restaurant owners talk 'Keith Lee effect' weeks after visit
