Across town at First & Last, things are also buzzing. After former "The Bachelor" contestant Matt James posted a review of the restaurant’s new lunch menu, hoards of hungry people began lining up, hoping to get a taste. Co-owner Robb Hammond has seen up to 40 people waiting outside — something he says never happened before.
Welcome to the world of going viral on social media, where one video can transform a business’s bottom line overnight. Within the past few months, multiple Valley restaurants have experienced this phenomenon and are learning that newfound fame comes with plenty of challenges.
After hitting 100,000 followers on TikTok, Amici Pizza co-owner Kateri Cusumano says the restaurant has been "consistently slammed from open to close."
Amici Pizza
Big names see big returns
Before Matt James visited, First & Last was, as Hammond puts it, a “quiet” neighborhood restaurant that started serving lunch approximately four months ago. While the restaurant gained positive reviews after its debut, it remained calm.
“I'd come and prep, and nobody would talk to me until three o'clock,” Hammond says.
When the lunch menu launched in September 2024, it was pretty successful, seeing approximately 40% more sales than he and his wife, Ashley, hoped for. But everything changed in December when James stopped by one weekend evening.
“I had no idea who he was, but he came up and was asking questions about some of the dinner things we were doing,” Hammond says. “And the next thing I know, I hear that he’s a famous person.”
Within 48 hours of James posting his video, First & Last saw lines of people waiting to get their hands on the now-famous Little Jerry sandwich. Beyond sales, First & Last’s Instagram follower count “went through the roof," Hammond says, noting that he is now fielding calls about going national.
“Real estate developers are calling me, trying to get me to open in Las Vegas,” he says.
The experience has been overwhelmingly positive but has led to some logistical challenges. James’ visit led to First & Last doubling their business at breakneck speeds, leading to concerns around how to spend their money.
“Do I have to invest another $200,000 to build a prep station because we have a small kitchen? Do I need to hire more staff?” Hammond says. “That is what’s concerning to me, is that I don't know.”
He’s also concerned with quality control, balancing expectations around how many additional products they can reasonably sell. This has meant occasionally shutting down early and not taking call-in or online orders.
Going viral "is 100% a good thing, but you have to manage it aggressively,” Hammond says. “We've learned that we might not sell as many sandwiches as we possibly could, but we need to sell the best sandwiches possible because this restaurant was built on selling great products.”
The owners of Amici Pizza have seen their business go viral organically, thanks to videos Kateri Cusumano (right) and her customers have shared.
Amici Pizza
Staying relevant in a fast-paced ecosystem
Kateri Cusumano has always believed in the power of social media and decided early on to focus all her marketing efforts on social platforms, particularly TikTok. After Cusumano and her boyfriend purchased Amici Pizza from her parents in 2023, she began posting behind-the-scenes videos of her life as a business owner. Users followed along with her daily activities like preparing Shirley Temples and packing takeout orders.
She says that it wasn’t until Amici Pizza’s TikTok account hit 100,000 followers a few months ago that her videos started to go viral on the platform. Many of the videos on the brand’s page have over one million views. Even then, Cusumano said the increase in customer traffic didn’t happen immediately but steadily built up over time.
“The last three months we’ve been consistently slammed from open to close,” Cusumano says. “Every single day is crazy.”
Her strategy of daily posting helped generate continued publicity, alongside a steady stream of user-generated videos posted by people traveling from all over the country to visit the restaurant. The social media fanfare has subsequently attracted notable media figures like Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports. Matt James also visited during his December trip to Phoenix.
Being active on social platforms doesn’t always lead to a consistent boost in sales, though. Tricia Arce of Toasted Mallow in Gilbert began actively posting on TikTok when it was still known as Musical.ly. Toasted Mallow currently has almost 270,000 followers on TikTok.
She’s gone viral a few times, both from videos she’s created and through shout-outs from mega TikTok influencers. She also partnered directly with TikTok for Super Bowl LVII.
Arce says that while every viral moment provides a short-term boost for her business, it doesn’t translate into the long term. She's constantly looking at new strategies to keep the business open.
“It's like a huge punch in the gut when we go viral, because we get all these orders for about a good week or two, and then it just dies down, and we're forgotten,” Arce says. “We're always trying to chase that high of the next viral video.”
She's also concerned about the potential of TikTok going away. In April, Congress unanimously passed a law banning TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fully divested from the app. The law went into effect on Jan. 19, but President Donald Trump signed an executive order the following day, pausing the law for 75 days.
"TikTok is more social. Everyone interacts more, and you get more engagement, so you're able to market yourself better on TikTok than you are on Instagram," Arce says. "So once you lose that platform, it's really gonna hurt for us."
Often, videos will be posted unannounced, leaving businesses scrambling to meet newfound demand. Juanderful Tacos gave out vouchers to customers when the restaurant ran out of food.
Sara Crocker
Adapting on the fly
Phoenix taqueria Juanderful Tacos has been mentioned by mega influencers twice in the past year, starting with popular food reviewer Keith Lee’s visit to the Valley, from which co-owner Juan Robles says he’s still feeling positive effects.Less than a year later, virality struck again when YouTuber Juan Gonzalez (aka ThatWasEpic) paid an unannounced visit to the restaurant. After handing $10,000 to the cashier to cover the cost of future orders, Gonzalez announced the free food to his social following. A huge line formed almost instantly.
Robles wasn’t scheduled to work that day, but as soon as he caught wind of the plan, he drove over and started helping his staff prepare as much food as possible. When he realized there wouldn’t be enough tacos to feed everyone in line, he started handing out vouchers to those still waiting.
“We told them, ‘Hey, we're out of food, but come back tomorrow or any other day, and we’ll honor this voucher for your food,’ and that's what we did,” Robles says.
Robles credits the Keith Lee visit with helping him and his staff stay focused amid the chaos.
“We kept saying, ‘Yeah, it's busy, but it's not our first rodeo,’” he says.
Robles says it’s still too early to tell if Gonzalez’s visit will yield long-lasting effects. Sales increased for a week after the release of the ThatWasEpic video, but business has leveled out since then. Even though it was just a temporary spike, it still helped bring awareness to his restaurant.
“(Gonzalez) is from Tempe, and a majority of his followers are from here,” Robles says. “I think it's going to be a permanent marketing boost for us, the fact that we're on his social channels.”
At First & Last, Hammond tries not to take the online hype too seriously. He noted that while living in Los Angeles, he saw many restaurants close down shortly after going viral. He adds that he and his wife are just trying to enjoy the ride and see where the moment continues to take them rather than attempt any social marketing gimmicks.
“We’re not doing some crazy crab on top of Hollandaise on top of a lobster on top of other bullshit — that’s just culinary masturbation,” Hammond says. “We're just doing normal sandwiches and producing good food, and will continue to do good work. That’s really all that matters.”
