What happens when a restaurant goes viral?

At 3 p.m. on a Monday, you’d expect most restaurants to be quiet—caught in the lull between the lunch rush and dinner rush. But at Easy Street Burgers, the scene is reminiscent of a VIP club, and it’s only getting busier. Thanks to a recent shoutout from Cardi B and Keith Lee, this once-humble parking lot pop-up has transformed into a bustling burger bar with a line stretching the length of the block, turning an otherwise quiet workday into one of the hottest spots in Los Angeles.

Easy Street began as a food stand in an East Hollywood parking lot in February 2020. Adaptability quickly became a cornerstone of their business, as just a month after opening, they faced the unexpected challenge of COVID-19. They thrived under the new safety guidelines and, after two years, opened a restaurant on the border of Studio City and North Hollywood.

Growth was steady, but a seemingly random event changed both their business and their lives. “When Keith Lee (a food critic with over 2 million followers on Instagram and a whopping 16.5 million followers on TikTok) posted our video on TikTok, the clip gained massive popularity around the world overnight,” Alfred Asatryan, co-founder of Easy Street Burgers, writes in an email.

“I think his viewers were impressed that he gave us two 10s and one 9.2 for three burgers.” That’s apparently almost unheard of for a review by Keith Lee, who says in the video that the original burger was “the best burger he’s ever had” and “seasoned perfectly.” At the time this article was published, Keith Lee’s video had nearly 13 million views.

“That night, we received hundreds of comments on our TikTok feed from people letting us know that we better brace ourselves for the volume and that we were in for something extraordinary because of Keith’s rare double 10,” Asatryan continues.

The next morning, he says, fifty people were already waiting to take advantage of the promise of a delicious burger – an hour before the opening at 8 a.m.

Social media popularity has become a double-edged sword for restaurants in the digital age. On the one hand, Easy Street’s viral spread catapulted it into the stratosphere, providing the kind of marketing money just can’t buy: a surge in orders, major brand awareness, and attracting hungry diners from across the country.

Although every small business dreams of becoming famous, success achieved literally overnight brings with it a number of challenges and can become a logistical nightmare for companies unprepared for such rapid growth.

The Easy Street team had to hire five to seven additional employees in a 24-hour period to cope with the workload. It was “complete madness,” but somehow they managed to survive the madness. The wait time got longer every day, sometimes up to two hours for food.

There were nights when the team had to cut the line an hour before closing time just to fill pending orders, and even faced the anger of frustrated customers demanding special treatment for a cheeseburger.

In fact, one particularly eager customer tried to bribe Asatryan to cut in. He recalls that one Friday afternoon, a man called the store and said he had heard about the burger joint from a review on the TikTok accounts of How Kev Eats and Keith Lee.

First, he asked if he could order by phone, but Asatryan explained that not only were phone orders not possible, but the wait time for walk-in diners was about two hours. “At that point, he asked me if he could pay $200 to skip the line,” Asatryan writes. “I said ‘no way.'” Instead of doing what most reasonable people would do, which is either wait in line or get dinner elsewhere, the hungry customer upped the ante.

“$500!”

“No.”

“$1000!”

“Nope.”

“$2,000!”

“That won’t happen. It doesn’t matter how much you offer.”

“You’re not taking $2,000?! Wow! Are you kidding me?!? Fuck off!”

While it’s bizarre to say the least that someone is willing to spend thousands on a $10 burger, this kind of demand for a product is ultimately good for business. Asatryan is well aware of this.

Now I could lecture on the future of dining in the age of Instagram. I could delve into the psychology behind how knowing something is “cool” and “trendy” somehow improves its taste, or analyze the magnetic pull of exclusivity that a long line or a “sold out” sign creates.

I could even delve deeper into the economics of viral marketing, explore the sociological implications of FOMO in the age of social media, or wax poetic about how restaurant critics shouldn’t have so much power.

But my most honest and authentic opinion is this: Writing this article has made me crave Easy Street as if it were the Smash Burger at the end of The menu. It seems I’ve influenced myself and am no better than the comments section of a Keith Lee video, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll join the line that has probably reached Santa Monica by now. And no, I’m not paying $2,000 to get cut.