20 Jan 30th-Feb 5th, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Going Viral Instant fame brings both excitement and stress to Phoenix restaurants. BY CASSIE BRUCCI O n a Saturday morning, you’d expect people to be lining up for brunch. But in Mesa, Amici Pizza co-owner Kateri Cusumano sees crowds forming long before her pizzeria opens at 11 a.m. Thanks to a recent surge in social media popularity, this modest eatery has become the hottest restaurant in town, where guests often wait around two hours to try the TikTok-famous mozzarella sticks and buffalo chicken pizza. 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 trans- form a business’s bottom line overnight. Within the past few months, multiple Valley restaurants have experienced this phenom- enon and are learning that newfound fame comes with plenty of challenges. Big names see big returns Before Matt James visited, First & Last was, as Hammond puts it, a “quiet” neigh- borhood 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 overwhelm- ingly 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 occasion- ally 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 restau- rant was built on selling great products.” 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. After hitting 100,000 followers on TikTok, Amici Pizza co-owner Kateri Cusumano says the restaurant has been “consistently slammed from open to close.” (Courtesy of Amici Pizza) First & Last co-owners Robb and Ashley Hammond saw their business double after former “Bachelor” contestant Matt James posted their sandwiches on his social profiles. (Courtesy of Kyle Ledeboer of KPL Studios) >> p 22 ▼ Food & Drink
