Bay Area restaurants are going viral thanks to TikTok foodies. If there’s one type of content that tends to go massively viral on TikTok, food trends are definitely on the list, and a slew of food businesses in San Francisco’s Bay Area are benefiting from TikTok’s algorithm. Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese chain that has taken off on TikTok—#DinTaiFung counts 85.2M views featuring clips from users documenting their food recs and favorite dishes from the restaurant. Smaller-scale food businesses are also benefiting from TikTok, including Abu Salim Eastern Grill, known for its fresh falafel, kunafa, and loaded shawarma plates. The restaurant’s 24-year-old co-owner, Salim Nasser, regularly posts TikTok videos highlighting the fresh ingredients used to make their dishes, and he estimates the restaurant has experienced a 30% overall increase in sales when he posts on TikTok, and triple the sales for the specific dish featured in his content. For Bay Area restaurants that don’t have their own branded channels, user generated content from food creators has helped boost their presence on the app while making some orders / ingredients sell out quickly after being featured in popular clips. YPulse’s Social Media Deep Dive trend research shows that the majority of Gen Z TikTok users say they feel trends are created on the platform first. (Eater)
