Columbus shop's business booms after viral online pizza review
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Several Columbus businesses are seeing their business boom after getting featured in reviews in the popular “One Bite” pizza series.
Five local pizzerias have been highlighted with more than 1 million views on YouTube over the last two weeks.
The owner of one of those pizzerias, Artisan Pizza Café on East Fifth Avenue, said they’ve sold out every single day. Social media marketing can make or break a small business, and Artisan is proof that just one video can change the course of the future.
Artisan Pizza, which opened this summer, has become a viral sensation in just a few months after receiving a score of 8.1 from Dave Portnoy, the creator of One Bite Pizza Reviews.
Owner Jasmin Ahmed has a long story leading up to opening this restaurant. She grew up in Italy, watching her mother and grandmother in the kitchen making pizzas from scratch.
"Everybody call me 'pizza baby' because that's all I cry for every day, pizza, so my mother makes all type of different pizza, so I'm just standing there watching her how she does," Ahmed said.
At Artisan, she takes those lessons and blends them into her own pizzas.
"What if I create something from both the world where I'm from, three worlds that I'm from -- Africa, Italia, America put together, especially Africa, Italia, that would come to good flavor,” Ahmed said. “This is what I love to do. Pizza is my world, especially my customers."
The pizza is a real labor of love, with Ahmed the only one working the dough.
"You have to knead it constantly and then rolling, knead it and roll it, and then you store, and it has to look like a perfect round, nice dough," she said.
Hundreds of thousands of people have seen her review with Dave Portnoy, creator of One Bite Pizza Reviews, and now they are flocking to the shop, where Ahmed makes everything from scratch, including all the beef pepperoni, meatballs, sauce, and her special dough.
"Good sauce, real soft, real cheese, real flour with no chemical in it," she said. "This is me. It's not about money. It's about having the community and people have a good food, a quality."
On Sunday, dozens of people were seen walking into the café, hoping to get some of Ahmed’s pizza, but she had already sold out for the day, and to make matters worse, one of the restaurant’s pizza ovens was broken; an online fundraiser has been set up to help her upgrade the restaurant.
Ahmed said it has been an exhausting week and is looking forward to a few days off; the shop will reopen on Wednesday. For now, due to demand, the restaurant is only accepting walk-in orders.
"This is what I love to do," she said. "Pizza is my world, especially my customers."