Beware, TikTok Is Coming For Your Favorite Restaurant
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When a restaurant goes viral on TikTok, it can become an overnight success. But the hype can overwhelm some business owners with new demand, among other challenges. When the dream of transforming your spot into a widely beloved restaurant comes true, owners celebrate the win in a tough industry. They also come face-to-face with unexpected challenges, like annoyed regulars.
For over two decades, Suzanne Smith, 54, has watched her homegrown business, Biscuits to Baskets, gradually expand. She used to welcome customers into her living room in Ajax, Ontario, to sell them treats; then she converted her garage into a shop to sell chocolates and baked goods.
With the help of her family, Smith later opened the coffee shop Backyard Brew in their backyard. Open only on weekends, the business usually made around 20 sales daily. It predominantly catered to neighbors, who stopped by for their morning coffee. “We're honestly just a small family, trying to pay our bills,” Smith said.
But operations suddenly changed after an April visit by food critic Keith Lee, who reviewed Smith’s business on TikTok for his 16 million followers.
“When they say the ‘Keith Lee effect,’ it did really happen,” Smith said.
Two days later, over 200 patrons queued up in her driveway. She described the following weekends as “even crazier,” with long lines upsetting some of her regulars.
“They called it their hidden gem,” she said. “We're trying to please everybody, and it's been really hard.”
Smith described the influx of new customers as “overwhelming, but in a good way.” Because of it, she can now take a vacation for the first time in five years, and she's confident that “the world knows about us now.”
Ultimately, “it's a good thing to happen for a small business,” Smith said. “We're embracing it and riding the wave.”
Since Kat Durham moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2021, she’s noticed several restaurants are becoming “more and more crowded.” For instance, while Hattie B's Hot Chicken has always been considered a popular choice by locals, it’s “definitely blown up,” she said.
Durham, 28, points to tourism as a seasonal factor largely influencing the ebb and flow of Nashville's food scene. “On the off-season, I realize it's easier to get into places or the lines aren't as long,” she said.
But when out-of-town visitors flock, the wait time at Biscuit Love can span one hour, and Milk & Honey is often double that. Both restaurants have been heavily featured on TikTok. “It's impossible to get a table there,” Durham said.
She spotlights several small businesses on her Instagram food account, and enjoys watching them grow. However, “people can be frustrated, just because they feel like, maybe, as a local, you should be able to have some perk of not having to wait as long for a restaurant,” Durham said.
Last November, Janel Prator finally experienced a breakthrough with her dessert shop, The Puddery, in Pearland, Texas, after intermittently pursuing her business since 2006. Many days, only one or two patrons walked through her door, and she often worked by herself—until Lee, the TikTok influencer, tried her banana pudding and croissant waffle.
Prator recalls that he told her, “I believe your life is about to change.” The next day, she arrived at work with extra supplies and her daughter in tow. Over an hour before opening, a line started to form, and she served 130 customers that day.
“It's still booming,” Prator said. But she admitted to being unprepared for the influx of patrons at the start. Locals started recognizing Prator in public, which felt both exciting and alien to her. She read positive and negative reviews—the latter doubted her business would survive.
“People were counting me out,” she said. “The most challenging thing is just the scrutiny from the community.”
Now, she employs five team members and is adding new flavors. Prator has also outgrown her current location.
“We've adapted. I'm comfortable with it,” she said. “I have the means to do the things that I didn't have before.”
April Ahsan, 28, has seen “a huge bump in social media advertising” for bars and restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area over the past few years.
“When you go to these places that you've seen a TikTok about or Instagram post about, there's a line out the door or there's a long wait,” Ahsan said. “It really seems like the social media has had a large impact on that.”
The Arlington resident has lived in Virginia for more than a decade, and often finds restaurants through her Instagram food account or as “one of those local favorites that I went to and, over time, they've really blown up.”
For example, Ahsan described Agora as “always booked,” and advance brunch reservations are a necessity. She stopped by Bar Chinois—a restaurant that often works with social media influencers—and “it was really, really packed on a Thursday night,” Ahsan said.
However, she doesn’t mind when her favorite spots are discovered by the public.
“I think it's really cool because you can be like, ‘Hey, I've known about this place for a long time,’” Ahsan said. “It's really rewarding seeing that other people also love it as much as you do.”
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