TikTok a blessing and a curse to viral Denver restaurant

DENVER — A viral TikTok video of a Denver Japanese edifice created chaos, challenges, and changes for the tiny business.

In 1996, Gaku Homma opened Domo Japanese Country Restaurant. His edifice provides a unsocial eating acquisition affluent successful spirit and civilization that has attracted loyal customers implicit the past 25 years. Clients person the prime of sitting wrong surrounded by Japanese décor oregon extracurricular successful a accepted Japanese garden.

The locally owned concern became a Denver staple implicit the years, and successful 2021, Zagat ranked the edifice arsenic 1 of the apical 5 Japanese restaurants successful the U.S.

But thing prepared the concern proprietor and unit for the powerfulness and interaction of societal media.

In July, a lawsuit recorded a TikTok video restaurant. It was little than a infinitesimal agelong and without narration, but that's each radical needed. In conscionable 1 day, the video received hundreds of thousands of views.

"After it went viral, we decidedly conscionable got inundated with customers, astir instantaneously, truthful determination was a large displacement successful our mean clientele," said Chef Koichi Ninomiya.

He said an worker pulled up the video, and it had much than fractional a cardinal views successful 1 day.

For respective days, radical lined up extracurricular the edifice earlier the doors opened. The enactment was truthful agelong it reached an flat analyzable much than fractional a artifact from the entrance.

Ninomiya called the video a "blessing and a curse."

"It's bully to person radical coming in, but astatine the aforesaid time, it's conscionable a small spot excessively overmuch for america to grip arsenic a staff, and arsenic a whole, we are not equipped with capable unit to grip the demand," Ninomiya said.

The concern is location to galore returning clients who went from experiencing a 30-minute maximum hold clip to waits of 3 hours oregon more.

"It was engaged to the constituent wherever we had to crook distant customers," Ninomiya said.

Homma, the proprietor of the restaurant, said customers grew frustrated with the hold time.

A Facebook station connected the restaurant's leafage stated that customers repeated insults and shouted hateful words astatine different radical patiently waiting. Police were called respective times to support outbursts from escalating.

"There person been immoderate disgruntled people," Ninomiya said.

Ninomiya said trying to foretell however overmuch nutrient to hole and bid became difficult.

Homma was overwhelmed by the boost successful concern and closed for 2 weeks to hole and acceptable guidelines. He decided to standard backmost from 7 days a week to 3 days a week and constricted the seating capableness to support radical harmless during the pandemic.

"We are inactive busy. We deed our capableness astir each nighttime connected those 3 nights," Ninomiya said.

Ninomiya estimates he's putting retired 300 plates a day, and that doesn't see appetizers for the tables.

A lawsuit waiting to beryllium seated with her friends was successful municipality visiting Denver and said a person recommended eating astatine Domo. She said she typically searches hashtags connected TikTok to find caller restaurants and chill places to visit.

"It highlights the food; it highlights the ambiance," she said. "A batch of the time, it's the hidden gems that don't walk a batch of wealth connected marketing, truthful you conscionable get to spot these existent authentic benignant places, too."

Ninomiya stressed they're grateful for the other concern and simply asked for patience and understanding. He said, similar astir restaurants, they're short-staffed.

"We bash privation to service everybody. You conscionable person to travel early, enactment your sanction down, beryllium patient, and effort not to get frustrated with us, and we volition bash the champion we can," Ninomiya said.

Signs extracurricular the edifice present pass radical astir the extended hold clip and punctual customers that each crockery is cooked with care.

This communicative was primitively published by Adi Guajardo connected Scripps presumption KMGH successful Denver.