While every industry felt (or still feels) the impact of the pandemic, the restaurant industry has been particularly affected. Before Covid-19, unemployment rates were at a five-year low, and minimum wage rates were rising nationwide. Almost one-third of the 20.5 million jobs lost in April 2020, about 5.9 million, were in the restaurant industry alone.
In the face of those layoffs and restaurant closures, these chefs opted to embrace TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and other social platforms to bring their skills out of restaurant kitchens to an audience of viewers eager to learn from their experience and pick up new recipes. In the process, they found an entirely new way to take their skills and do business—one that may not have presented itself before. They offered WIRED their advice on how others can do the same.
Much of the past year and a half has been about sharing recipes. We’ve all shared sourdough starter stories and our reactions to that viral tomato feta pasta.
When Poppy O’Toole, a chef who trained at a Michelin-rated restaurant, lost her job as a junior sous-chef, her younger siblings introduced her to TikTok after she moved back home. She noticed people posting their home-cooked dishes to the platform and saw viewers resonating with the videos. O’Toole was intrigued by the challenge of demonstrating a recipe in only 60 seconds while also making it easy to follow.
“All I’ve ever done is cook. I don’t have any training in anything else,” says O’Toole. “I tried posting recipes on TikTok because I thought I’d be anonymous, and I was worried about embarrassing myself in front of the people I used to work with on Instagram.” Turns out she was wrong.
O’Toole posted her first video on April 1, 2020, with the caption: “Hope this TikTok doesn’t flop like my career.” The video, a recipe for McDonald’s-style hash browns, went viral.
When the British media started referring to her as the “Potato Queen,” she launched a series called “25 days of potato recipes.” Halfway through, she posted a compilation video of the recipes she’d made up to that point, which pulled in more than 20 million views.
“It was crazy—I went to bed with 200,000 followers one night,” she says. “The next morning, I woke up with a million.”
For O’Toole, using TikTok to get her recipes out into the world has been a silver lining to a horrible year. “I thought I’d be working in kitchens all my life, but now I want to keep making content online or on TV,” she says.
Today, O’Toole has 1.6 million followers on TikTok and a new book, Poppy Cooks the Food You Need, scheduled for release in September 2021. She’s also monetizing her influence through sponsorships on her videos.
If you’re looking to succeed on TikTok, her first tip is to be confident. It took a while for O’Toole to get comfortable with her own success, which translated to more confidence on screen. “I never thought anything would come of this,” she says. “Now, I’m obsessed with food. TikTok. It’s a beautiful world.”
Next, focus on your audience. “When I posted recipes that weren’t about potatoes, I didn’t get as much response,” O’Toole says. “So I stayed true to what my followers love.”
Pastry chef Claire Raposo opted for culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu rather than college. After graduating at the top of her class at 19 years old, she returned from Paris to open The Lost Lamb Patisserie in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a quaint town made famous by Norman Rockwell.
Shortly after opening the bakery, flush with her business’s new success, the pandemic hit. “Everything I’d worked for was suddenly gone,” says Raposo. “The 1,000 followers I had at the start of the pandemic are the only reason I stayed afloat,” she said, referring to the people who followed her business when it was just a farm stand in 2018. “Everyone says how important social media is, but you don’t realize that it can translate into real customers until something like Covid happens.”
Based in a town of retirees, Raposo’s business tapered off as her customers feared contracting Covid-19. “I spent every day sleeping in trying to avoid going into work as long as possible because I was so burnt out,” she says. “I found myself lying in bed scrolling on TikTok a ridiculous amount.”
Raposo started making videos on New Year’s Day 2021, hoping for a fresh start for her mental health. Instead, she ended up finding a way to stay open and reach new customers in the off season.
While other local businesses were contemplating closing, Raposo started to see an uptick in customers. Almost overnight, they were as busy as they were back in the fall when there were tourists around.
“The number of people who drove literal hours to come to the bakery is just incredible,” Raposo says. “I’m not tech savvy in any way, so I’ve had to teach myself,” she explains. “There have been some real flops, but TikTok seems like the last pivot of this crazy year, and my followers have done more for my business than any advertising ever could.”
Today, she has more than 600,000 followers on TikTok and regularly meets new customers who drop in to buy a cake or who found her online and order on her website.
Her suggestion? Stay positive when you put yourself and your skills out there on social media. “I’ve only been doing this for a few months, and already I’ve gotten people who hate my guts over my opinions on gas stoves or how I dress,” shares Raposo. “I can’t please everyone, but I’ve learned that if I put positivity into the world, then I get it back.”
Also, don’t forget to look the part. The night before Valentine’s Day, Raposo’s busiest holiday, she was at the bakery cooking after midnight. “I made a video about kitchen tools that I refuse to allow in the bakery that went viral,” she says. “The biggest thing I learned from that video was to look presentable because you never know when 4 million people will see you with the biggest under-eye bags imaginable and no makeup.”
Amber Walker isn’t a household name yet. She started her private chef and catering company, SZND (pronounced Seasoned), at the onset of the pandemic after being laid off from her full-time job as a chef for a catering company. “I was caring for my three-year-old niece at that time because my sister, who’s a nurse, was working with Covid patients,” says Walker. “I struggled coming to terms with the fact that everything I worked for could be gone overnight.”
At the onset of the pandemic, she entered the Favorite Chef contest. She filled out a profile, uploaded photos, and detailed her history, goals, and signature dishes. The competition promised the winner $50,000 and a two-page spread in an upcoming issue of Bon Appétit magazine. Walker hoped to use the funds to help mentor more youth in her community and expand her business.
While Walker didn’t win the contest, she made it to the top 15 chefs in a worldwide competition and used this opportunity to unearth invaluable entrepreneurial skills. “With all the support from friends, family, and the community, my business skyrocketed, and the contest led to more followers to my business pages,” she explains.
“I’ve posted about what I do for SZND on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram,” said Walker. “The biggest day was when I posted my interview from ABC 27’s Good Day Pennsylvania on Facebook there. I reached many people, and they commended me for my success since starting a new business in an uncertain time.”
For Walker, social media isn’t just about the number of followers. It’s about connecting to her community—the customers she cooks for, fellow LGBTQ community members, and the youth she mentors. “Social media helped me promote my business and show people that you can create a better future for yourself through hard work and determination, rather than working a typical 9 to 5 or for someone else.”
So it makes sense that one of her tips for using social media to promote your work or your skills is to give back to your community. As a mixed-race member of the LGBTQ+ community, Walker uses social media to connect with her customers and the causes she supports. “I donate 20 percent of my profits to a local LGBTQ foundation from every pop-up I do,” she says.
She also suggests you use social media to mentor and lift up others. “I knew the likelihood of my winning the Favorite Chef was slim, but I wanted to see how far I would make it, so I entered the contest,” said Walker. “I received a lot of attention on social media, which shined a light on a mentorship/scholarship program I’m building for the youth in my community.”
Also, don’t forget to use social media to actively market your work. “My social media platforms have helped me get on local news broadcasts,” Walker says. “As well as promoting myself in my community.”
During the pandemic, and even now as its effects linger, social media allows individuals and entire communities to stay connected even while physically separated, or turn skills once limited to offices and kitchen into new business opportunities. As the world begins to reopen, many of the trends that began on social platforms are here to stay, and more people than ever have the opportunity to build their own communities and follow new opportunities.
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