A plane touches down in Greensboro at 9 a.m., a car pulls into a restaurant parking lot an hour later, and the passengers wait for the doors to open. By 4 p.m., the same travelers are back in the air, full of pizza and sweet tea.
That trip really happened, according to Zachary Elsayed of Pizza Vino in High Point, North Carolina, and it is one of the stories behind the restaurant’s sudden fame. WXLV reported on Oct. 30 that the restaurant’s TikTok videos have passed 26 million views since Aug. 25, and customers have come from Chicago and well beyond to eat there.
A 9 A.M. Landing and a 4 P.M. Flight Home
The Chicago visit is the story that gets retold most. Elsayed told WXII 12 News that the customers’ plane landed in Greensboro at 9 a.m., they reached the parking lot at 10 a.m., picked up their food, and met him before a 4 p.m. flight back to Chicago.
WXLV added a detail from its own interview. Elsayed said the customers waited in the parking lot for the store to open, and they told him the only reason for the trip was to eat at the restaurant. The station reported that thousands of customers have traveled from across the country, and Elsayed said he has also met people who flew in from Canada and the Virgin Islands.
The airport in that story is Piedmont Triad International Airport, which Wikipedia describes as sitting just west of Greensboro and serving the region that includes Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem. The pizzeria itself, WXII reported, is on South Main Street in High Point.
Sweet Tea Beat the Pizza
The most-watched clip is not about pizza. WXII reported that the restaurant’s TikTok content has more than 3 million likes, and its most popular video has 4.3 million views and is about the sweet tea. WXLV put the like count at 3.1 million and said the account is approaching 60,000 followers.
A glass of iced tea needs no explanation, which may be part of the appeal. Home cooks chasing a better pie of their own can look at Frenz Hub’s roundup of outdoor pizza ovens or its guide to pizza peels, though neither comes with a sweet tea recipe.
Where High Point Sits on the Map
High Point is a city in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad that spans four counties, Guilford, Davidson, Forsyth and Randolph, according to Wikipedia. It had 114,059 residents at the 2020 census and sits south and southwest of Greensboro.
WXII described Pizza Vino as a pizza joint that has operated in the city for more than 31 years, and WXLV said the family-owned restaurant has been in High Point since 1995. A list of traits shared by people who always order the same thing at a restaurant fits a place with that much history, where regulars have likely had decades to settle on a favorite.
Viral fame changes the crowd. A laid-off San Diego man’s apartment pizzas sell out in under 30 seconds, and a long line says little about the food either, which is why a list of restaurant red flags is a useful read before a long trip. The restaurant’s own TikTok account, @pizzavino, shows what the daily posting looks like.
One Video a Day, and No Marketing Agency
Elsayed is the person behind the camera. WXLV described him as a restaurant employee and social media coordinator who posts daily videos of menu items and what the station called creative curveballs. WXII called him the manager and said he posts every day.
WXLV reported that Elsayed took over the social media for his father’s restaurant after other approaches fell short. He said he reached out to a couple of marketing teams but was not satisfied with what they produced, so he chose to do it himself in “a more genuine, authentic way.” The station added that he got his start making music online, and he estimated that he posted more than 10 videos a day during those two years.
The social media job is only one of his roles. WXLV reported that Elsayed made his first cheesesteak at age 7 and still takes deliveries, answers the phone, handles orders and works in the kitchen. He told the station that he can do everything the restaurant needs, which helps when a viral clip fills the dining room.
The two reports describe the timeline differently. WXII quoted Elsayed saying consistent posting began about four or five months earlier, while WXLV counted the 26 million views from Aug. 25 forward.
Orders Double and a Hiring Sign Goes Up
Fame has a practical cost in a small kitchen. Restaurant owner Bob Elsayed, Zachary’s father, told WXLV that orders have more than doubled over the last three weeks and, in some cases, nearly tripled. Lines have stretched into the parking lot, and the father and son recalled that the first couple of weeks were overwhelming and hard to prepare for.
The crowds are not limited to weekends. Zachary Elsayed told WXLV that people arrive every day, from the moment the doors open until closing, and that the dine-in booths and drive-thru lanes have filled with visitors from well outside the Piedmont Triad region. He said he always expected the attention to come, though he could not have predicted how big it would get.
WXLV said the restaurant is now hitting its stride, and the owner put a sign outside reading “HIRING NOW… APPLY IN PERSON.” The station also noted that the restaurant’s Facebook account recently reached 10,000 followers.
Zachary Elsayed’s advice to others chasing a business dream, WXLV reported, is not to fear failure and to see setbacks as part of the path. The figures in this story come from WXLV on Oct. 30 and WXII on Oct. 28, and TikTok counts change by the hour.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
