Instagram isn't just cute pictures and fashion ideas. It's now a place for people to order food and create new restaurants. This once lightweight app is now becoming a heavy weight for foodies and cooks alike.
A chef, herself Tejal Rao wrote about this in today's New York Times Food section. Instagram is now a great way of advertising pop up and cloud kitchens. The last is basically a restaurant that rents out its' cooking facilities to two to three cooks from different pop ups.Last year, before the pandemic went full throttle, chefs only dreamed of starting a successful business. Then Covid-19 hit and eateries closed.It was possible for smaller, independent chefs to prepare meals in their or their parents backyards and kitchens or reached out to restaurants that found their business drastically reduced. Then Instagram introduced Shop and Reels which allows prioritizing popular brands and influencers. Chef Rao worried that the platform would be hostile to these tiny pop ups but cooks do make it work. They rely on direct messages and linking out to forms, custom built shopping pages or third party apps. It's paid off. It can be difficult for diners however. They have to follow each business closely and remember each pop-up's schedule,pick up rules and payment methods.
Yet they survive. Kevin Hockin's pizza has gotten a huge following. On a busy weekend he sells a whopping six hundred pizzas through a gap in his fence in Altadena, California. Side Pie is a small operation started after his Collage Coffee closed in March. He was smart to post cute pictures of chihuahuas in cute hats and pizzas on the app. This led to a small but devoted fan base for his charred thin crust pies and then tie dyed merchandise He even has a former pastry chef at the famed Sqirl bake seasonal slab pies for him to sell as dessert. Chef Hockin has reopened his coffee shop and is hoping to incorporate Side Pie into it. Then there is Persian Sophia Parsa who with her mother, Farah, makes the famed mound of rice for their pop up Golden Rice. It can be a challenge for them because they're not fluent in English. It is tough because there's so much to do, from writing advertising to writing menu descriptions. However the Parsas are still successful. One night there were forty domes of tah dig, Iranian style rice complete with barberries and herbed yogurt.It was the same for Jihee Kim who went from working in a Mexican restaurant to creating her popup that reflects the best of Korean banchan shops in busan. She cooks Japanese yams in soy sauce and delciate omelets with seaweed. There is also fried chicken from Anwar Herron in Napa, California and Trina Quinn's pelamin in Brooklyn along with Erik Piedrahita's succssful pop up barbecue place.
Instagram is the way to go for any burgeoning chef wanting to gain customers and fans. It allows them to start in one of the toughest industries and become wildly successful. It's now the backbone of the pop up restaurant business.
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