On August 8, 2022, the TikTok account @81stdeli posted its first video, a simple clip of someone showing a chicken salad and saying "Now that's how you make a chicken salad, at East 81st Deli." It picked up just 15 likes4. Twenty days later, on August 28, 2022, deli owner Wael Herbawi filmed a second video featuring his longtime family friend Tanisha Godfrey eating a chicken salad he'd made for her1.

The backstory is charmingly mundane. According to Herbawi, Godfrey walked in while he was eating a salad himself. She said it looked good, so he offered to make her one1. He'd been trying to grow the store's social media presence, so he gave her the salad for free and asked to film a quick TikTok3. Godfrey's version is slightly different: she says she stopped in after work on a hot day, wanting something light, and ordered the chicken salad with extra toppings. When Herbawi finished making it, he suggested they film a video1.

Either way, the result was the same. Godfrey looked into the camera and delivered the now-iconic line: "Y'all better come up here and get one of these. It's a chicken salad. 81st Deli. Superior"2. She listed ingredients ("chicken, pickles, banana peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, onion") before the clip cut off. "That's how I naturally talk," Godfrey later told TODAY. "It wasn't like I was like, 'Oh, it's a chicken salad.' No, it's the way that I talk naturally"1.

The video's impact on East 81st Street Deli was enormous. Sales went from 40 salads a day to 300 on a sustained basis, with a peak of 980 in a single day3. Herbawi hired five new employees and began renovating and expanding the building1. People traveled from across the country just to try the salad, with visitors documented from California, Georgia, Alabama, Las Vegas, and Portland3.

The meme drew mainstream media coverage from Bon Appetit, TODAY, PopSugar, Cleveland Magazine, and News 5 Cleveland, among others1357. It sparked broader conversation about how TikTok can transform small businesses overnight and about the economics of viral fame for creators who don't own the platforms they go viral on.

Godfrey's Weight Watchers sponsorship generated cultural debate. Scalawag Magazine published an essay connecting the sponsorship to broader patterns of anti-fatness and diet culture, arguing the deal was part of a "targeted unraveling of the limited progress made in the body inclusivity/positivity space"6.

By January 2024, the deli commemorated the moment with a permanent graffiti-style mural on the building's exterior, featuring the deli's name and Godfrey's catchphrase9.

Before the chicken salad made him famous, Wael Herbawi had been running East 81st Street Deli with his brother since 2005, taking over from their father who'd operated it as a convenience store3. Herbawi is Palestinian, born and raised in Brooklyn. His father took the family to East Jerusalem as teenagers, where Herbawi worked in a sandwich shop. The family returned to the U.S. about a year later due to the conflict3. When Herbawi took over the Cleveland store, he started adding food to the menu, beginning with corned beef sandwiches and gyros in 20063.

The chicken salad itself had been on the menu for about two years before it went viral3. Herbawi's mother inspired the recipe: she used to make large chicken salads for their family of eight. The secret is a house dressing made from olive oil, lemon juice, and a spice blend built around an Arabic spice grown in Palestine. Only Herbawi and his mother know the full recipe5. The salad itself includes spring mix (lettuce, spinach, kale), cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos, shredded mozzarella and cheddar, hard-boiled egg, pickles, croutons, and grilled chicken3.

When the viral wave hit in late October 2022, Herbawi was blindsided. "They're saying your thing went viral, your thing went viral! I'm like what are you talking about?"2. He'd been selling maybe 30 to 50 salads a day. Within days, that number hit 3008. On his busiest day, he sold 980 chicken salads3. He had to order over 200 pounds of chicken for a single day1. His retired father was pressed back into service, driving his Mercedes around Cleveland to pick up emergency supplies of spinach and spring mix3. "I even had to call in the cavalry: my dad," Herbawi told Bon Appetit. "He was like, 'I'm retired.' And I was like, 'Not anymore. I need you'"3.

Customers traveled from Chicago, Atlanta, California, Las Vegas, New York, and Portland3. Cleveland Magazine's reviewer noted that even at 9 a.m. on a Monday, orders were already coming in. The salad, described as a "hearty pile" with thick-cut vegetables and a "certain unidentifiable zest," earned high praise. Herbawi promised to keep prices unchanged despite the surge: "Some people would price gouge when something like this happens. We won't do that here"7.

Godfrey, who by profession helps transition people with mental illnesses from institutions to independent living, was stunned by her sudden fame1. "Like, it's me. Wow, it's me. So I'm still in a moment of surreal," she told TODAY1. She said people fell in love with her personality and the way she naturally speaks1. Beyond TikTok, celebrities like NFL player Josh Cribbs and singer Tia Mowry made their own iterations of the video17.

The aftermath brought both opportunity and complications. By February 2023, Godfrey hired business lawyer Shannon Davis to file a $250 trademark application for phrases from the video, starting with "Y'all better come get one of these"8. Davis worked pro bono, telling Cleveland Scene she believed Godfrey should be able to monetize her influence8. Godfrey was flown to Houston and Atlanta as a guest nightclub promoter. She promoted a friend's charter school at Beachwood Mall, where 150 people surrounded her8.

But the fame also brought controversy. Godfrey landed a sponsorship with Weight Watchers, filming a video from their test kitchen making a chicken salad. While some praised her for monetizing her moment, others cringed at the partnership. Scalawag Magazine's pop culture newsletter criticized the deal, arguing it fed into anti-fatness narratives and diet culture6. Google allegedly offered Godfrey just $500 for the rights to her sound8.

A year after the video, both lives had changed. Herbawi's profits nearly doubled. He had a graffiti-style mural painted on the side of his building reading "It's A Chicken Salad, The 81st Way"9. He began planning an expansion: a Brooklyn-style deli with a clothing store on the other side of Superior Avenue8. The salad was officially renamed "TikTok Salad" on the menu5. Meanwhile, corporations including the NFL, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Trident used the video or audio, almost always without permission8.

Herbawi expressed some regret about not monetizing the video properly. "TikTok didn't give me nothing," he said. "If I would've monetized it at the right time, I could've made a half a million on just views"8. But he harbored no ill feelings toward Godfrey capitalizing on what was technically his video8. For her part, Godfrey wanted to use her platform to boost other Cleveland restaurants that don't get social media attention. "I try to let people know there's more to Cleveland's urban neighborhoods," she said2.