On Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, Tiara “TLynn” Council walked into the Center City location of her Philadelphia juice bar with low expectations. It was the morning of the proposed economic blackout, a 24-hour period where consumers were being encouraged to forgo any nonessential purchases as an act of resistance and class solidarity.
Council had been manning the bar by herself to keep labor costs low and didn’t expect a crowd. Maybe she would get 25 or 30 customers that day, her normal foot traffic. With eviction court looming, Council had almost given up—until TikTok turned everything around. The latest example of a recent trend of TikTok small business success stories, people started swarming the store. Over 100 of them crowded into her Pure Green franchise, eager to try one of her superfood smoothies or cold-pressed juices.
Council broke down.
“I’m literally just crying in front of God knows how many people because I can’t make their order,” she tells the Daily Dot.
Council’s tears were happy ones, a physiological release from the stress and fear she felt at the prospect of losing the business she opened in August of last year. The week of the blackout, she had been panicking about money: The bank was sending her to probation. As a last resort, she posted a GoFundMe explaining that she was heading to eviction court in March, and needed to raise $70,000 to keep the business afloat.
“This isn’t about me,” she wrote on her fundraising page. “It’s about keeping a dream alive, maintaining opportunities for my community, and proving that we can overcome even the toughest obstacles.”
But she wasn’t the only one. Another Philadelphia business owner, Shakeira Turner, was also struggling—until a TikToker changed everything
A TikTok creator walked in—and everything changed
Two days before the blackout, Council (@bewelljuice1124 on TikTok) posted a vulnerable video of herself breaking down from the mental exhaustion of running her business, searching for funding, and dealing with lawyers. So far, her fundraiser had only netted about $875. Then Brandon Edelman walked in the door.
“So I just saw on the news there is a black female-owned business called Chubby Chicks,” Edelman explained, filming himself as he walked. “And the owner, Shakeira Turner, says that her neighboring businesses are bullying her and not making her feel welcome… So you know what, Shakeira? I’m going to come and try your food because it looks good as sh*t.”
Nine days before the blackout, Edelman — better known as @bran__flakezz to his one million TikTok followers — posted a video of himself literally running to try the food at Chubby Chicks 1111 after learning the Philadelphia restaurant was being harassed by its neighbors.
“I said, ‘Hey, I don’t mean to be this guy, but I’m a content creator.’ I pulled up my page, I said, ‘I would really like to meet Shakeira if she’s here,’” Edelman tells the Daily Dot, recounting the day he filmed the video that helped reverse Skakeira Turner — and later Tiara Council’s — business fortunes.
A few hours later, he posted the short video of his trip, meal, and experience meeting Tuner to his TikTok page, hoping the exposure might help her out. Almost 11 million views later, the video is now one of his most-watched pieces of content.
One week after he posted the Chubby Chicks video, Edelman posted another: “You guys, it is 7 am and there is another Black, female-owned business in Philadelphia that is on the verge of closing and we need to go support her.”
The business was Pure Green, Council’s juice bar; Turner was the one who sent Edelman the video detailing the businesses’ financial troubles.
How a viral TikTok can make or break a business
The economy is proving especially turbulent for small business owners, and a similar story played out in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where Rachel Nieves (@its.rachel.rose on TikTok) the co-owner of Buddies Coffee, recently went viral after sharing her business woes in an emotional viral video.
“It just feels like you just can’t win. It feels like the small people can’t win,” she cried after explaining how rent hikes and gentrification issues were pricing her business out of the neighborhood. “And I can work so hard, and I can have such a good mission behind what I want to do.”
@its.rachel.rose Happy start to women’s history months I guess ! Hearing this news today just now completely broke me. As a self funded small like true mom and pop business this news is scary – I’ve never tried to nor want to “compete” with anyone. If you know me you know I truly don’t see anyone as a competitor- however, knowing someone -whoever they are is planning on opening literally next door not down the block across the street around the corner. I cannot deny it will crush me. I’m hopeful we will make the most out of these next 6-7 months in this space and I just know God was holding my hand when I decided to sign a lease in the city (with hopes and dreams of having two shops) I will continue to remain delusional always I will always work hard show up for myself and show up for others. I promised myself If I was to make content I will be completely myself – nothing curated just raw and here I am
Nieves’ video received over 7 million views on TikTok, and viewers showed up to support in person. Joe Jonas posted a video of himself going to Brooklyn to buy coffee.
Nieves told an ABC affiliate, “They were waiting in line, and they brought music and they brought the whole party inside. So many people had shared that Williamsburg looked and sounded like how it used to.”
TikTok has proven itself capable of making any person — or business — famous at any moment, and a positive review from the right influencer has the potential to change a restaurant’s trajectory forever. Keith Lee (@keith_lee125 on TikTok), a Las Vegas-based MMA fighter and social media personality, carved out a space for himself in food media as the TikTok restaurant reviewer.
With a follower count that stands at 17 million strong, Lee’s video reviews have the power to unleash what social media has dubbed the Keith Lee Effect, wherein TikTok viewers will descend upon a restaurant, creating such demand for its product that the eatery is forced to rethink everything from their location to their business model.
From near closure to sold-out success
Turner says business was good before Edelman’s post, but now “We’re swamped. There hasn’t been a day I didn’t sell out yet. I’m buying more and more inventory.”
Chubby Chicks’ overnight growth necessitated a hiring spree, and Turner reports that since Edelman’s video went live in mid-February, her staff has grown from six people to 18. The experience, she says, has been “Amazing, unreal, exciting. I’m just trying to process how big that is.”
But success hasn’t made the work easier. Turner does all the cooking at her restaurant, and she wrestles with balancing the demands of running her business while simultaneously scaling it. “I even thought about closing for a couple of days to train and to get it together, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” she says.
Chubby Chicks and Pure Green are located around the corner from one another, and the success of both businesses has had positive implications for the rest of the neighborhood.
“Other restaurants that are next to us, like Hilo Taco and ScoopDeville, they’re both swamped,” Turner explains. “Me personally, I have to turn away a lot of people. And we send them there.”
Council says that since Pure Green blew up, she’s had to rely on friends and family for backup. She shares that she’s received messages from “L. A., from Minnesota, from Florida, from everywhere. People just saying they want to help and support me.”
Going viral isn’t always enough; challenges remain
Edelman’s exposure was huge for her business, Turner says, but it didn’t improve relations with her neighbors. “Now it’s turned, like, extremely legal,” she explains. “But it turned me on to different things. So even if this doesn’t work out and I do have to leave the property, I’m leaving with the name.”
In Brooklyn, Buddies Coffee also plans to move locations. Nieves told TODAY.com “Even if (our landlord) were to say, ‘We won’t raise the rent, we won’t put another coffee shop next door,’ they already showed me they don’t value me and there’s no way I would want to be in business with someone like that.”
Why small businesses need more than a viral moment
On the day of the blackout — which happened to coincide with the last day of Black History Month — Edelman’s post about Pure Green helped the business hit its fundraising goal of $70,000. As of mid-March, the business has raised $95,000.
48 hours after the blackout, @bran__flakezz hit one million followers on TikTok. That day, Edelman took his mom to a small event Turner was holding in support of a cookbook she wrote.
“On the day he hit a million, do you know how many different things he could have did?” she says. “I just want everyone to know that he didn’t do it for the likes or for it to go viral.”
Council hopes that sharing her story will inspire other people to look for ways to help, but she warns that businesses don’t just need a moment in the spotlight — they need investment from the community. “This has to be an ongoing, supportive thing.” She says “I just rehired staff… you have to grow and have to figure out things so fast, and so these numbers have to continue.”
The day after his Chubby Chicks video went viral, Edelman posted a follow-up video thanking people for their support of the restaurant, and asking for patience as Turner and her staff worked through the massive uptick in business.
“It has been so amazing to see the support around this community and see Philly show up for each other,” Edelman told his followers.
Edelman says he doesn’t see enough influencers using their platform for good. “I think there’s this mindset that using your platform for good means you need to make a video at the soup kitchen once a week. That’s not what I’m saying. This is such an easy thing that I did.”
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