AZ Taco King first went viral when someone posted a TikTok of the birria ramen sold from their taco cart.
Three months later, business owner Ilse Jazmin Valenzula Sears and her husband, Samuel, were able to open their first brick-and-mortar.
For small-business owners, TikTok is the ‘new TV’
Sears describes social media as the “new TV.” Since everyone is on their phone, social media can be used as an alternative to what used to be ads on a radio station or newspaper.
Posting on TikTok has allowed AZ Taco King to gain a larger audience, and she feels they can reach customers around the world if they want to. At the time of writing, their TikTok account had 92.4K followers on the app and 100k on Instagram .
The increase in business was enough to support two locations of AZ Taco King, one in Phoenix and the other in Avondale, along with a new snack shop in Glendale.
But it hasn’t been easy.
TikTok brings in both local customers and fans from surrounding states
Sears is the one behind the camera and her family are the ones cooking, but initially, she and her husband came up with the recipes together. Many of them are based on dishes her grandmother made when she was growing up, like the tamales she helped her sell. The recipes at AZ Taco King also use many of the same spices and herbs.