How To Run a TikTok-Famous Bodega | On the Job | Priya Krishna | NYT Cooking

yes young lady man help you today could i get one new york time special the awkway so let's rewind a couple of weeks as a food journalist oftentimes for me the most interesting stories aren't the ones that take place in the four walls of the restaurant but rather the ones that tell the story about the labor often unseen that keeps us fed in different cities and here in new york that often starts with the bodega bodegas are the lifeblood of this city they are community centers they are the place to pick up your morning breakfast sandwich that can of chickpeas that you forgot to get on a grocery run they're a place to meet colorful characters and funnily named bodega cats so i wanted to meet a bodega owner and understand what stakes they're up against every day how they basically run a grocery store restaurant community hub all at the same time and for this particular bodega owner how they also manage being tick-tock famous he's like abrupt cuts [Music] my name is ryan mohammed i'm a manager of 603 clinton street you have a blessed day mama trying to serve the community making sure everything is in my my bodyguard [Music] do you now get like a lot of customers requesting like raheem make my yeah especially the aki can i get one bacon i can choose the hockey ring in arabic is like a brother ah akov basically is my way to designing the sandwich making it look nice i always make sure are you allergic to this or that she got milk fries mozzarella sticks okay yes sir man help you today i like to add up what i think is correct sometimes i know i make it crazy but oh my god how do you eat that in one bite now we wrap it up and the result is omg can't forget the bed never never never now we serve it tell me about how the tick tock started my little brother he downloaded i don't even know my password i don't even know that's how i don't even know my tic-tac-face or nothing he did it i was like let's let's do a bacon egg and cheese on the honey bun yes sir man i'll help you today yo let me get a bacon egg and cheese yo yeah what the honey bun bro the first day went up to i think 100 000 views i was i was so high crazy i had only like 16 000 followers by december now thanks guys 2.4 million followers that's a lot raheem how old were you when you came from yemen i was 10 10. he's very he's really not the age you say he is he ages backwards i'm assuming you have a ton of regulars i've been in this community for like 22 years what do you mean come back him back come back came straight to northern atlantic uh my stepfather and he had a story over there we started with him because he couldn't do it by himself since i was like since muhammad i learned you're 10 and you work cash register like you're 25 years old my nephew he used to be a tick-tock yeah he had 150 000 followers and they banned him because you were a kid on the grill they shut it down i do like what he does when i say you don't like cooking yeah if it's for tick tock oh my god doesn't like cooking unless it's for tick-tock when i started doing the daily first time i think i was in the age of 13 14. wow do people now come in just because they've seen you on tick tock yeah i came from baltimore drove four hours to get here yes sir yes it is shout out to dallas texas minnesota and we're gonna get one with all of us outside hell yeah chopped cheese on a grill cheese the aki bacon egg and cheese on the hash brown sausage egg and cheese on waffles chopped cheese grilled cheese with hot cheetos the aki way and he put moth sticks in there yeah it's really good have you made a good amount of money from tick tock yes i did not mad but i did this is good like a game-changing amount of money i don't even need to become a show i could come just do the video and leave business is is hot it's hopping he hasn't got enough stress though he's super chill do i miss anybody with the chicken you got everybody got one on the line already all the way into the cereal show i got you mommy i make a nice steak okay a hundred sandwiches of aki way regular sandwiches i do over to 300 sounds this is joe's right here i hold the chopped chopped cheese with fries and runny egg on a hamburger bun like what are some of the weirder requests that you've gotten bacon egg and cheese with gummy worms what pops up bacon egg and cheese inside the roll no that was not bad yes young lady man help you today could i get one new york times special the awkway i'm gonna make something special for you you like cannot help but be so joyful when he says sure we got some nice shrimp and salmon whatever you want i eat everything all right what's the hardest part of your job you see how i just got a big order tonight yeah i gotta go fix that so basically i work in both stores i don't just do it how you doing chicken chipotle we have one on the right every day i stuck and where i work all over is like i don't have a main position of my underside i do everything you do everything yeah wow some there's one thing when my dad told me about running a bodega he told me son if you not on top of what you own you will lose because ain't nobody gonna do exactly what you will do for your own store i'm a good stalker i like to stock i will make you think it's a board usually i will put like the pops out next to these food snacks the cookies we will label one spot all together i feel like you have a uniquely good selection of flavors are you really into cereal they they love cereal yeah because i like the there's no big like supermarkets all the things out there i didn't know arizona i see made that many flavors yeah we do we have all flavors making egg and cheese with taki's the aki way no other way this is a new york times special why is this sandwich feel like the new york times special i just can't pop up to my mom this one's mine very little idea of what i'm about to eat but i'm sure it's going to be delicious all right let's check it out you got your bed can't ever get the bath you get the bath never never never don't get the beverage can't forget the bev what a better i don't know what what kind of bed you gotta grab a bev young lady all right okay let me go find one [Music] this is really hard so many options what do you think about this man i'm gonna get one of these all right all right got my beverage and the result [Music] that looks pretty awesome omg can't forget the bed thank you okay i can frankly say i don't think i've ever had a sandwich like this it's on kanish it's got salmon shrimp broccoli potatoes he calls it the new york times special i think he thinks we're like seafood and veggie people actually that's really good oh my god i just any sandwich with like griddled fried bread and spiced potatoes that's awesome this is awesome this is so good it tastes good i was a little skeptical of salmon with potatoes but it's a really good combo come on it's nice yes young lady how you doing auntie at this point you're just running the bodega because you love it i love this is my brother's my store getting ready and guys running charlotte before christmas do you mind showing me the store next door yeah sure let's check it out no problem every saturday sunday i get this crowd like even friday it'd be busy and you feel like it makes it hard to do like the other parts of your job if i had more help i could do you could you see now i'm still doing everything yeah and people expect to see like you as the guy at the grill making the sandwiches do you consider your job to be really like difficult some people don't know but i to me i do anything hair like i do so does anything clean up stuff do you feel like your job is really hard my job is very hard yes it is i'm glad you recognized that it is it is a really it is very hard that feels i don't know it feels a little unsustainable like i feel like you need to get to a place where you can you know do it all right like there's so many customers and having to say that like to do that every single time for every customer [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's exhausting hopefully it's gonna be just that part now soon when i moved to manhattan maybe they're gonna you know like all you'll do is like like so don't there's the salt and is being is being salt bae is that what you want like when i seen soul bae my heart got a little stronger and i was like i'm going to continue doing what i'm doing because look where where the position where he started from look where he's at i started in the store hopefully now my location is going to be good when i open it it's a lot of work i have to never never another sandwich can't forget the bev sandwich what's the what's good what are gonna be on this hey what's up what's on that crazy i can't tell you young lady yes young lady man help you today can i get the new york post special to aki way yes wwe champion big email help you today what does your step dad think my step dad was laughing at me in the beginning he was like what are you doing huh he would think that i'm gonna get lost you know how he see rappers with the chain like this is against our religion would change whatever yeah so that this is a cooking part rabbits might come to me then order some food he realizing now looking at it and seeing people really telling like your son is doing very good can he see me in the news he's really happy now ride serving the community since he was little i'll let you get back to your customers sure

Channel: NYT Cooking

Views: 2,006,193

Keywords: cooking, cooks, recipes, recipe, how-to, how to, kitchen, new york times, new york times cooking, nyt cooking, nyt, nytimes, the ocky way, tiktok, priya krishna, on the job, bodega

Id: 1oxeunIEJWM

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 14 2022