Stores built just to be fashionable are going out of style. Three years ago, with the rise of new social networks, content creators began to mark the obligatory stops in the Madrid hospitality industry. At the end of the day, it is them and the TikTok algorithm that have the power to make a business viral. However, what happens after this success? What happens to those restaurants and their endless waiting lines? Does virality guarantee them a place in the minds of customers or are they, sooner or later, condemned to die of success?
For content creator Bárbara Gant, who has a community of 219,000 followers, a change in trend is occurring in Madrid businesses. “After the pandemic, people were very anxious and very striking places, whose strong point was the decoration,” explains Gant. The fever of designing tableware, glasses and even walls to get the perfect photo for Instagram became the priority of these businesses, leaving aside other aspects such as the quality of the food. What difference does it make to what the dessert tastes if it looks pretty in the video?
“Right now I think people are not looking for that as much anymore. They have been putting experience aside and looking for quality and exclusivity,” says the expert, whose most viral video has seven million views on TikTok. He reel shows a new restaurant whose central theme is pretending to be a psychiatric center. According to data from the reservation platform TheFork, “after going viral in December, its visits multiplied by eight, compared to the average of the rest of the restaurants in the capital in that period.” However, for a few weeks now he has gained another share on his social networks. reel. This shows a small hidden place in Madrid where they give a tortilla sandwich for two euros.
TikTok, the vademecum of leisure
Aware of this desire to find curious places after confinement, many restaurants began to hire communication agencies for their businesses. The reason is that TikTok became the vademecum of leisure, the ultimate reference place to find interesting experiences in the capital. Rather than competing for who offered the best service at the best price, businesses began to focus on finding a way to appear first in the Google of a new generation. “We communication agencies began to make a calendar for the entire year in which a large part of the strategy consisted of hiring influencers to position the local’s news on social networks. Success lies in the business itself becoming a content creator,” says the Efya communication agency.
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One of the first businesses to fully follow this strategy of betting almost everything on virality was La Pollería. Behind their success on social networks were Alejandro Fernández and Gonzalo Barreno, creators of the Planes Brutales account, aged 28 and 30. They were the ones who turned La Pollería into a viral phenomenon, something you had to try no matter what. “La Pollería went viral because it had all the elements to be viral: it was controversial, affordable and innovative. However, it is a business that was destined to die,” admits Fernández.
People went to La Pollería just for the experience of eating what was known as polofre, a candy shaped like a large penis. “It’s a place you go to only once. You don’t come back to repeat it,” says the expert after the success of the site on networks. Because the reality is that, these marketing experts slip, in a matter of chickens, eaten one, eaten all. The same thing happens with many of the places that go viral almost overnight. After a few months of long lines, several of the establishments of this type have closed: “La Coñería has already closed and La Pollería will have the same fate soon,” says Fernández.
But these men dedicated to driving businesses to stardom have not lost a bit of their enthusiasm despite the apparent failure of these establishments. They are also the ones behind the management of the networks of the latest viral success in Madrid, La Freseria, a small establishment oriented exclusively to strawberries with chocolate. For now, his videos have more than 100 million views. Their destiny, their owners acknowledge, will most likely be to ride the wave until it subsides. Then start again.
“We saw how viral the concept was in London and decided to bring it to Madrid. The idea was for it to function as a temporary store, but we have been so surprised by the success of the place that we are thinking of leaving it for longer,” they confess.
These two influencersin addition to being content creators, are the owners of the Efya agency, whose motto is We are experts in viralization. And that’s why, when a client comes to the agency and asks to make their place go viral, the first thing they warn them about is the danger of dying of success. “You can have a business designed to go viral, but if in the end you don’t adapt to the city’s trends, you will die along the way,” says Fernández.
Dying of success for TikTok
This is the case of Casa Loca, a Chamberí cafeteria completely designed for taking photos. Its star product: a coffee where the photo that the customer wanted could be printed on the foam. In Madrid Enreda tethe owner, Ainhoa Gómez, 24 years old, confessed that the coffee and bowls It was “100% designed to succeed on social networks.” However, months after apparent success, it closed. His last message on his Instagram account is from April 2023: “With all the sadness in the world, and despite having tried to avoid it at all costs, we have to say goodbye.”
For Gant, the biggest mistake that venues that seek virality make is to base themselves on the concept and not the quality: “You only go to these places once.” Another mistake that is usually made is that they hire influencers and, later, they are not prepared to welcome so many people. “They don’t believe in the power of the networks and they collapse when they fill up with queues, which ends up lowering the quality of their products to meet demand,” he says. For the social media expert, restaurants focus on going viral because they believe that is the key to success, but they do not create a long-term strategy that allows them to survive virality.
“There are several stores where not so many people go anymore because their strategy was based on concept and not quality,” says Grant, who has been changing all of his content in recent months in response to this new trend that is taking place in the Madrid hospitality industry. A clear example is Caluana, a restaurant located in a spectacular church that went viral and that the company itself influencer he took out in his networks. “The problem was that later they changed the chef several times and the quality of the product changed,” he explains.
For Laura Loisea, communication consultant, lifestyle and gastronomy at Filippa by Indie PR, making a business viral today in Madrid is very easy: “You just need a place that has a very nice decoration and a lot of personality. That from the plate to the walls are worthy of a photo.” However, remember, the difficult thing about success is not achieving it, but maintaining it.
However, being such a recent phenomenon, the formula for virality is never assured. The co-founder and managing partner of the Nota Bene agency, Guillemette Sanz, assures that the rise of social networks is often due to people seeking to live the same experiences as their favorite content creators. “It is the aspirational profiles that have contributed to raising passions for the plans in Madrid,” she says. However, she warns that if you are only born with the goal of succeeding online, things can end very badly.
Pablo Cabezali is behind Cenando con Pablo, an account that has 654,600 followers on TikTok, an account whose reel most viral has more than 6.7 million views. It’s a restaurant called Wow Crab, which serves a kilo of seafood on the table. Without further ado. This is eaten with your hands and, for months, it has been the sensation of the capital. Today, the waiting lists and the long lines that had to be queued to enter have been greatly reduced. “They are places that generate controversy because they are not the typical seafood restaurant. But you only go to those places once in your life.”
For Cabezali, people continue going to eat at places that catch their attention on social networks, although they are beginning to look for something else. “I think there is a trend, that the public is looking for more and more quality and has become more demanding.” Marta Díaz de Mera, 27, content creator and CEO of a communication agency, agrees with this. lifestyle called 27 Studio. “In a city where a restaurant opens every week, you either adapt to trends or die,” says the expert, who cites the case of the Cereal Hunters cafeteria, which went viral for its cereals with colored milk and which fewer and fewer people go to.
Marcos Villaplana, manager of this establishment, explains that, although after the pandemic, they have had to close two of the three establishments they had in Madrid, they are trying to reinvent themselves and fight to stay alive. “We became known for cereals, but now we are polishing the menu to offer a broader range of breakfasts,” explains Cereal Hunters.
Experts agree that the profile of people who consume viral videos is a teenage audience who, for the most part, only come to visit Madrid and seek to live the same experiences as their content creators, even if they have to wait hours in a queue to eat a simple cheesecake. However, it is these same queues that generate rejection among an older, Madrid and more traditional public, who instead look for plans that can be improvised and places where they can get a table and that serve good food.
Things are changing even among themselves. influencers. Grant, for example, confesses that he has stopped accepting many collaborations with restaurants because he realized that his audience no longer wants to see 15 almost identical videos from all the restaurants on his TikTok. microinfluencers Madrid residents who go to the same places that are fashionable. “Two years ago, when I started, I accepted many collaborations because it helped me financially, but I already have a track record and I prefer to be a client and pay. This way I make sure that the experience I live is the same one that my followers will have,” says Grant, who, without the commitment of being invited by the venue in question, she feels that she has more freedom with her publications.
Opening, virality, success, decline and closure. This seems to be the cycle that more and more establishments in Madrid respond to, a city that, deep down, has never forgotten what it really means to eat well.
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