By Rick Hynum
Heavenly Pies, a neighborhood pizzeria in Mobile, Alabama, is on the verge of closure. Can a miracle turn things around for its owner—a man of faith—in the coming weeks?
It’s still too early to tell, but owner Darryl McKinney has seen signs and wonders—in the form of long lines and influencers touting his food on social media—since he announced two weeks ago that the restaurant would close on June 27.
Whether that’s enough to save the restaurant is one looming question. Another point of concern: If Heavenly Pies survives for now, can it seize the momentum and make some crucial changes to ensure long-term success? In 2023, Frankensons Pizzeria in Las Vegas famously saw a similar surge in business after a glowing review from wildly popular influencer Keith Lee but found itself back in a deep hole the next year—and ultimately failed.
McKinney first shared his pizzeria’s “regrettable news” in a somber TikTok post on June 15. “The math’s not mathing,” he said. “We’ve been here a couple of years, and it’s just not feasible from a financial standpoint to continue on this journey. Even though we had support, we just didn’t have enough support.”
@heavenlypies251 Thank you, Mobile ❤️ It is with mixed emotions that we share that we have made the difficult decision to close our doors on June 27. We will remain open during our normal business hours, Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. this week, and we would love the opportunity to serve you one more time before our final day. To our customers, friends, families, and community, thank you. Thank you for your support, your loyalty, your encouragement, and the countless memories we’ve made together over the past few years. Mobile, you welcomed us, supported us, and made us feel at home. We are incredibly grateful for every visit, every meal shared, and every person who walked through our doors. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being part of our story. #mobilealabama #foodtiktok #smallbusiness #locallyowned ♬ Our Love Was Beautiful – Instrumental Version – Straight White Teeth
Since then, however, foot traffic to the restaurant has exploded, as AL.com reports, abetted by local and regional influencers who don’t want to see the business fail. For now, Heavenly Pies will remain open at least through Friday, July 3, as McKinney announced in another TikTok video posted on June 29.
But McKinney knows he’s living on borrowed time. “We still haven’t made a final decision [about the restaurant’s future],” he said in that video. “We’re still working towards negotiating some terms that would keep us moving forward, and we’ll know here over the next few days how everything plays out.”
McKinney’s original video on June 15 prompted a flurry of visits and positive reviews from TikTok influencers like Zack in the South, The Flavor Chaser, Takhai Smith and others.
One reviewer, posting under the handle There He Is, pointed to the pizzeria’s health department score of 100 and remarked on the restaurant’s cleanliness. “The pizza was packed with flavor, the cheese was perfectly melted, and that crust had the right amount of crisp without being too hard,” he said. “Honestly, I think the location might have worked against them because the customer service was great and the pizza definitely deserves more recognition.”
Lifestyle influencer Ophelia “Mama Tot” Nichols, who has more than 12 million followers on TikTok, posted her own Heavenly Pies review, declaring, “That is an awesome BBQ pizza.” After trying the cheesy bread, she stated, “Y’all cannot close, honey!” (Note: In the video below, Nichols reposted a portion of McKinney’s original video before cutting away to her review of the restaurant.)
@shoelover99
Marketing: The Missing Pieces
When a restaurant’s closure is announced on social media, it’s not unusual for customers to suddenly turn out in droves—it happens a lot, in fact, but it’s often too little, too late. So far, McKinney told AL.com, the support “has been overwhelming,” forcing him to close early most nights after selling out.
If Heavenly Pies stays open, there are some crucial gaps to fill in the two-year-old pizzeria’s marketing strategy. Heavenly Pies has a website and a respectable presence on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. But it has two accounts on each of the latter platforms, potentially creating confusion for new customers. The more recent accounts showcase stronger content, like promotional videos that highlight pizzas, wings and other items, while the older ones feature only static images of positive customer reviews. Moreover, the Facebook link at the bottom of the pizzeria’s website sends users to the outdated Facebook page, not the newer one, while the Instagram link points to Instagram.com, not Heavenly Pies’ page on Instagram.
Additionally, while Heavenly Pies is listed on third-party delivery platforms like Postmates, DoorDash and Uber Eats, its website provides no information or links pertaining to delivery, just a menu in a PDF format, a physical address and a phone number. Heavenly Pies also does not appear to offer online ordering, practically a must in the digital age. If a potential customer doesn’t already know about its third-party delivery options, they might assume the only way to place an order is to visit the restaurant in person or call on the phone. And many customers today simply won’t do that. There are too many other delivery choices out there.
The Frankensons Example
All of that brings us to Frankensons Pizzeria, which appears to have closed permanently in early 2025 and might serve as a cautionary tale for Heavenly Pies. Back in 2023, Keith Lee, one of social media’s best-known influencers, heard from a Frankensons employee that owner Frank Steele was struggling to pay his rent and stay in business. Lee visited the shop while he was in Vegas and gave it a stellar review in a video that garnered more than 30.6 million views and 6.2 million likes on TikTok.
Suddenly, lines were forming outside the door at Frankensons Pizzeria. Yet the restaurant never launched a website, much less online ordering. Although Steele started creating promotional videos for TikTok and Instagram, they mostly consisted of Steele himself speaking directly into the camera and repeatedly touting his $60 value deal for families and groups.
The goodwill generated by Lee’s support for Frankensons Pizzeria apparently began to fade over time. By August 2024, Steele told a media outlet that he had enjoyed “a good seven months” before business started to slide again. “Now, with the last…six, seven, eight months, it has just gone downhill,” he said at that time. “We can barely keep our doors open now.”
It’s unclear when Frankensons closed down for good, but Steele’s last food-related post on TikTok went up on April 27, 2025. (After that, the feed suddenly became something deeply peculiar. You can see it for yourself here.) Steele last posted on Instagram on January 25, 2025. Again, he was stressing his weekend special for families and groups—a 20” pizza, 24 jumbo wings, fries, 12” sub and six garlic knots for under $60.
In hindsight, Frankensons’ reversal of fortune was astonishing: Keith Lee handed the pizzeria invaluable nationwide exposure for free, yet the owner never seems to have built out the basic infrastructure he needed to convert viral curiosity into repeat local business. And while Steele’s emphasis on bargain deals might have appealed to value-conscious customers, that’s not a long-term strategy for success, since those customers are often more loyal to discounts than to specific restaurants.
A Course Correction
With some business savvy and good luck, Heavenly Pies might survive. But it could learn a lesson or two from the Frankensons story and benefit from a change of strategy over the long term:
- Add details about delivery options to the website
- Implement online ordering and promote it across all digital channels
- Create a POS-driven loyalty program and VIP club to capture guest data, provide rewards, keep customers engaged and encourage repeat business
- Delete the older Facebook and Instagram accounts to eliminate confusion and fix the incorrect social media links on the website
- Identify some of its more profitable signature menu items and encourage influencers to help promote them to their audiences
- Replace the PDF menu on the website with a mobile-friendly menu built directly into the website. A standard webpage for the menu would make individual pizzas and ingredients easier for potential customers to find through Google, easier to browse on a phone and easier to connect to online ordering or delivery options.
Meanwhile, Kiara Brown, a supporter of minority-owned restaurants, has created a GoFundMe campaign for Heavenly Pies with a goal of $12,000. So far it has raised just under $2,000. Brown noted that McKinney and his partners “have been funding the business from their own pockets, struggling to cover payroll, marketing, rent and utilities.”
Whatever the future holds for the restaurant, McKinney is keeping the faith. “You know, we’ve just been fighting and fighting,” he told AL.com. “And so God just put [it] in my spirit to talk to the people, to tell my story. And they have responded. So now…we’ve got some hard deadlines and some financial obligations to meet at the present. We’re really pushing our GoFundMe and hoping that people respond in a very positive way.”
He added, “I’m in deep, so I don’t want to [walk] away. As long as the door is open, I have a chance to recoup my investment. The minute I lock that door for good, I’ve lost everything…But I trust in the Most High, especially after seeing the response [to the June 15 video]. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s overwhelming.”
