NYC restaurant named ‘Thai Food Near Me’ goes viral
By Iris Jung
April 14, 2023
A Thai restaurant in New York City has gone viral on Twitter for its clever branding.
When looking for a bite to eat, it is common for smartphone users to turn to Google and search for food “near me.” One Thai restaurant apparently attempted to take advantage of such search patterns by naming itself “Thai Food Near Me.”
Uploaded to Twitter by Alicia Tatone (@AliciaTatone) on March 28, an image of the “big brain business name” quickly went viral, reaching 78,900 likes and 7,370 retweets as of this writing.
“I like it. I’m always searching for whatever near me. Anyone searching for Thai food near me will get them first so it’s rather brilliant actually,” a user responded.
“Smart, but wait till they find out I’m opening ‘Best Thai food near me’ right around the corner,” another user joked.
Noting the search engine optimization (SEO) game, the picture was reuploaded by Twitter user Gaut (@0xgaut) on March 30.
Gaining 60,300 likes and 8,680 retweets, fellow Twitter users shared their reactions.
“And it works in person too,” one user shared. “As it is the closest Thai food to you in that moment.”
Gaut also made to share some similar restaurant naming ideas, including “best chinese food new york,” “brunch this weekend” and “cheap restaurant near me.”
However, Twitter user Morgan Greenwald (@megreenwald), an SEO professional at PMC, pointed out that the restaurant’s strategy is actually the opposite of effective.
“This is actually a terrible name from an SEO perspective,” Greenwald wrote. “Have you ever googled ‘thai food near me’? it’s dominated by local results. they’re never gonna rank for their own name and they’ll have zero branded keywords.”
Although some Twitter users speculated that the restaurant may have been closed down due to its paper-covered windows, another image posted of the restaurant shows it recently had its grand opening on April 3.
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