At this TikTok-famous Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, the tacos are as good as they look

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.

Sears said it was a challenge at first, as she and her husband had to manage an influx of customers who were showing them pictures of exactly what they saw on the app, wanting the same thing. But TikTok then became a vital part of her business plan, and she launched her own account @aztaco.king about a year later in 2021.

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.

Now, her husband, son and brother-in-law are all cooks, and she focuses on running all the businesses' social media pages, including Instagram and Facebook. But TikTok is the biggest driver, and most consistently provides the necessary results.

“It’s sort of part of the job description now,” Sears said.

She said it does get a bit overwhelming to consistently post on TikTok or other social media, especially since they have multiple locations to manage, but she stressed the importance of posting every day, replying to comments and answering questions.

“We can tell the difference if I didn't post videos for a couple of days, you could definitely tell the difference in the sales right away,” Sears said. “People come to the restaurant and the first thing they do is pull out their TikTok and say this is what I want or explain to us, 'TikTok sent me here.'”

She’s seen customers come from Tucson, New Mexico, California and Nevada just to try their food.

AZ Taco King ensures customers get exactly what they see on TikTok

The content Sears records for TikTok includes making the food and day-to-day moments in the restaurants, where she's also the quality control critic in the kitchen.

She wants to ensure that the quality of food that people see on TikTok translates to the food they eat in person. That’s something they emphasize to all their employees.

“Exactly what you’re getting is what I’m posting,” she said, adding that she never puts filters on any of their videos.

Sometimes, that means designing a menu around what will do well on TikTok. And birria is a known winner.

Birria pizza was the first dish to go viral on their @aztaco.king account. And recently they’ve started selling birria tamales.

But birria takes around six hours to cook, so the restaurants try to keep a lot of meat simmering at all times, especially on weekends, since birria is not something they can just throw on the grill to order. Once they're sold out, they're sold out.

“If there's a video trending, then you know my place is packed, and it's half of the people in there will tell you that they came from TikTok,” Sears said.

She said that sometimes she's afraid to post foods that have already gone viral because she knows her restaurants will get so busy.

“But our business does really appreciate all the sales, and we need it as a small business,” she said.

Typically, their locations sell out of the most popular items on weekend evenings, so Sears encourages guests to try to come early.

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TikTok is a powerful platform for growing a family business

After the success of AZ Taco King, Sears experimented with opening a new business based on what was trending on the social media platform: a snack shop called AZ Frescas.

It all started when she saw that Chamoy pickles were trending on TikTok. At AZ Taco King, they already sold agua frescas, which were popular. So she tapped into that audience and opened a shop in Glendale that specializes in Mexican snacks that are trending on the app, including homemade Chamoy, Chamoy drinks and all different kinds of candies.

Sears is from Sonora, and living in Phoenix – which is close to the border – gives her the ability to tap into the things going on in Mexico. If it’s trending there, she brings it here.

“I'm really, really blessed to be Mexican and know exactly what's going on in Mexico and be able to recreate those dishes and drinks,” she said.

In the first month, Sears didn’t get many customers. She felt it was because she wasn’t reaching TikTok’s algorithm. Then, AZ Frescas got picked up and started appearing on people’s customized For You Page. Now, her shop is packed.

AZ Taco King earned national recognition on TikTok's 2023 Latin Visionary Voices List

During Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, 2023, AZ Taco King was included on the TikTok Latin Visionary Voices List, selected from the platform's millions of users for being "innovative creators, business owners, and cultural changemakers who are impacting their communities and shaping the future."

“We're honored as a small business, especially in our community being Latino, having our own businesses is such an accomplishment for me and my family,” Sears said. “We are very happy and blessed, our whole crew is, all of our employees, not just us. This is a whole team effort.”

She said it was her mother’s and aunt’s dream to have a food business, but they were never able to achieve their goal. So, since she was young, Sears planned to incorporate their business dreams and her grandmother’s recipes into her own as a way to honor them.

“It's not easy being a small business owner,” she said. “We all have big dreams for our businesses, and I think that TikTok could take you to that next level and push your business into what it needs to be, but people need to be consistent.”

She encouraged other small businesses to take the time to promote themselves and hopes that others are encouraged and inspired by the success of AZ Taco King to follow their business ownership dreams.

“We're just a little tiny business just trying to make it happen selling tacos,” Sears said.

How to visit AZ Taco King and AZ Frescas

The hours for AZ Taco King are 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday. Closed on Monday.

Hours for AZ Frescas are 12-9 p.m. Tuesday, 12-10 p.m. Thursday to Saturday and 12-7 p.m. on Sunday.

Details: AZ Taco King, 2030 W. Camelback Road, Phoenix and 12725 W. Indian School Road, Avondale. On Instagram @aztacoking.

Details: AZ Frescas, 5150 W. Olive Ave., Glendale. On Instagram @az.frescas.

Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow @dina_kaur on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How a mom-and-pop Phoenix Mexican restaurant went big using TikTok