Tiny Town Pizza and Other Guthrie Businesses Drop Into the TikTok Arena
What Happens When a Small-Town Business Takes on TikTok?
(Tiny Town Pizza and Subs sign on roof of building, extracted from Facebook)
When I learned that Tiny Town Pizza and Subs had jumped on the TikTok platform, I had a pretty simple question in mind:
Can TikTok actually make a difference for a small-town
business in a place like Guthrie?
It seemed like a good question to ask. TikTok has become a
major part of how people discover things, but what does that look like for a
business in a small Kentucky town?
Tiney Town Pizza and Subs Takes to the Platform
Tiny Town Pizza and Subs is still pretty new to the
platform. Kristen Harper, who took over the business in January of 2026, said getting
on TikTok was part of a larger effort to bring the business into modern times.
Online ordering came first. Then DoorDash. And social media was
another part of that process.
The interesting part is that Harper had never even used
TikTok herself before starting the business account.
@tinytownpizza We got really into it, really quickly #funny #workfun #tinytownpizza #edits #bloopers ♬ Welp, Didn't Expect That - Yu-Peng Chen & HOYO-MiX
(Video from Tiny Town Pizza's TikTok captioned "We got really into it, really quick")
“I’m like learning too,” she said.
After only about a month, the account had produced 17
videos, picked up 237 followers and received nearly 3,000 likes.
Whether those numbers are good or bad was something neither
of us could really answer.
“I don’t even know if that’s good or bad,” Kristen said.
We both laughed.
But Tiny Town Pizza and Subs isn't the only local organization that has
recently made the jump to TikTok.
Guthrie Main Street and Other Join TikTok
Guthrie Main Street started its TikTok account in February.
At the time I checked the account, it had 440 followers and 551 likes.
Tracy Robinson, with Guthrie Main Street, said the decision was
largely about being where people are.
“Just trying to be on as many different social media
platforms, because, you’ve got to as a small business,” she said.
But for Guthrie Main Street, there is more to the decision
than simply adding another social media account.
Tracy described a progression she has seen as different
social media platforms have become popular with different generations.
Facebook, once considered a newer platform, has increasingly become associated
with an older demographic as Instagram and then TikTok have emerged grabbing the youth attention.
“TikTok is the newer young generation, and you want to reach
all age groups if you can,” she said.
She also sees TikTok as offering something different from
simply reposting the same content across multiple platforms.
In her view, TikTok allows more creativity. There is music,
there are trends and there are opportunities to reach audiences that a business
or organization might not reach otherwise.
For Guthrie Main Street, that younger audience is
particularly important.
Tracy pointed to Bardstown Main Street as an example of
another community organization that has used TikTok effectively to reach
younger people. She said one of her priorities is showing younger residents why
they should care about the community where they live.
Because if they don't see that connection, she worries they
may grow up, leave town and only come back for holidays.
“We want them to be part of the community now,” she said.
That gives TikTok a slightly different purpose.
For Tiny Town, it is primarily a new marketing tool.
For Guthrie Main Street, it is also a way to introduce
younger people to what is happening in their own community.
Tracy said she has already seen evidence that the strategy
is reaching younger people.
“I have reached younger people!” she said.
And the audience she really wants to reach is even younger.
“We really want to reach the 16, 17, 18 year olds, so they
can see what we’re doing and what we’re about,” she said.
Other Local Businesses Jumping On TikTok
Guthrie Main Street isn't alone locally, either. Tracy also
pointed to Old Soul Vintage Co. and Schlabach's Bakery as other local
businesses that have started using TikTok.
Old Soul Vintage Co. is what many might consider a hidden gem, harboring antiquities of rarity for the home. They consider themselves a true paradise for "Pyrex junkies".
@kurstieevans Lost footage of us being silly. 🙈#dance #vintage #antique #pyrex #CapCut ♬ original sound - Old Soul Vintage Co.
Old Soul doesn't just do fun TikTok's though, but they feature live online auctions. And while they are not using the TikTok to do their live auctions at this time, the cool thing is that... They could!
Then there's Shlabach's Bakery, an Amish-style scratch-made kitchen where preservitives and artificial ingredients have yet to infect the production setting. It's interesting associating the term Amish with TikTok here, but hey! It's the TikTok era!
@schlabachs.bakery ✨️ you deserve a treat! ✨️ #schlabachsbakery #fyp #amishbakery #supportlocal #foryoupage ♬ original sound - shoppyshopicon
So What is TikTok Actually Doing For Small Town Kentucky?
Suddenly, the original question about one pizza restaurant
becomes a little bigger.
Maybe this isn't just about whether one small-town business
can figure out TikTok.
Maybe it is about how small-town businesses and
organizations are learning to use a platform that was built for a much larger
and much younger audience.
And that is where my interview with Tiny Town Pizza took
another unexpected turn.
(Image Curtesy of Kristen Harper, Meeting Customers At Check Out)
I went into the interview wanting to know whether TikTok
could help Tiny Town Pizza market its food.
I left thinking about how TikTok might also be changing the
way the people inside the business interact with one another.
It is easy to think of a small business employee as someone
who clocks in, does a job and clocks out.
But that isn't really what is happening here.
The TikTok videos give the employees another way to
participate in the business itself.
@tinytownpizza Just a little something to take the edge off. #funny #restaurant #lunch #work #tinytownpizza ♬ September - Earth, Wind & Fire
They can suggest ideas. They can appear in videos. They can
help film. They can make each other laugh. They can show a little of their own
personality.
Suddenly, the employee isn't just part of the workforce.
They are part of the story the business is telling.
This could become one of the most unexpected effects of social
media for small-town Kentucky businesses, or any business really.
Kristen went on to tell me that is part of what she wants from the account.
She wants customers to see who is working at Tiny Town, get to know them a
little bit and feel more comfortable when they come in.
“If you know who’s working in here, it’s kinda like they’re
getting to know us a little more,” she said.
That creates a connection in two directions.
The customer gets to know the people behind the counter.
And the employees get another opportunity to become part of
the identity of the business.
And in a small town like Guthrie, that can matter.
A large chain restaurant can spend money on advertisements
showing a perfectly prepared product. But a small local business can show the
people working there and make it, creating an avenue for building trust.
At Tiny Town Pizza, this means not just displaying food across TikTok's platform, it also means showing employees making pizza,
joking around and sometimes just trying to figure out how to make a TikTok
without looking awkward.
The irony at Tiny Town Pizza is that the employees were the ones who wanted the
TikTok account in the first place.
“They begged me for this,” Kristen said. “And then I’m like,
if it’s slow, make a TikTok. And I’m always the one having to initiate.”
Once they actually start filming, though, the process seems
to become part of the fun.
Harper said the awkwardness of making the videos is part of
what makes everyone laugh. John has become one of her regular participants,
partly because they worked together in the mornings and, as Harper jokingly put
it, he became the “victim” of her TikTok plans.
A newer employee, T (TieShirra), also seems to have taken to the camera more naturally.
Other employees help by taking pictures and videos or coming
up with ideas, even when they aren't necessarily the ones appearing on camera.
The result is something that goes beyond simply creating
content.
It gives the employees another way to be involved in the
business.
They aren't just making pizzas or taking orders. They are
helping decide how Tiny Town Pizza presents itself to the community.
That is a form of community building, too, although it is
happening inside the business rather than outside of it.
The food is still important, of course.
Kristen has learned that the videos which follow current
TikTok trends tend to get more views and likes. Those videos have sounds and
trends that people are already searching for.
@tinytownpizza I did it! But is this what imposter syndrome feels like?! #smallbusiness #pizza #introvert #guthrie #food ♬ original sound - clips_Ahoy
(From Tiny Town Pizza's TikTok, Captioned "I did it! But is this what imposter syndrome feels like?!")
But the food videos serve another purpose.
Kristen is using TikTok to show people different ways they
can customize their food. She has even experimented with targeting some of
those marketing videos toward the local area.
The idea is simple: show someone something that looks good,
give them an idea they hadn't thought of and maybe get them to come try it.
That same willingness to experiment shows up in the food
itself.
Because Tiny Town is a small restaurant with limited space, Kristen said they can't keep every unusual ingredient around all the time.
Instead, they sometimes use limited-time items to experiment.
That is how the pumpkin pizza came about.
@tinytownpizza FALL in love with our NEW Pumpkin Dessert Pizza! Pumpkin shaped, pumpkin flavored, cream cheese glazed goodness is available NOW! 🎃🧡 #pumpkin #tinytownpizza #food #yum #fall ♬ Hip Hop Background(814204) - Pavel
They tried different ways of making it before settling on
the version they offer now. Eventually, they figured out that making it in a
pumpkin shape allowed them to keep it to one size without having to add several
different options to the menu.
It is another example of something that doesn't necessarily
start as a traditional marketing strategy.
Sometimes you just try something.
Sometimes it works.
Then you put it on TikTok.
Kristen isn't expecting TikTok to transform the business
overnight. She said building an audience takes time.
But she does see a business purpose behind what might look
like nothing more than employees having fun with a phone.
“It is marketing,” she said, “it’s just in a different form
because that’s the world that we live in today.”
Her goal is to eventually build the TikTok following to
roughly the size of the restaurant's Facebook audience (2.4K). Looking further ahead,
she also wants people to recognize Tiny Town Pizza when they walk through the door
and, more importantly, want to come try something they saw online.
She says she wants people to see a calzone, a deep dish, or one of
the restaurant's more unusual pizzas and think, I want to try that.
Whether TikTok can actually accomplish all of that remains
to be seen.
And that may be the most interesting part.
The TikTok Experiment Will Go On
This isn't a story about a small business that has already
figured out TikTok.
It is a story about small businesses and community
organizations trying something new and seeing where it goes.
I initially went into Tiny Town Pizza looking to talk about marketing via TikTok.
Instead, I found a business owner learning a new platform,
employees who apparently wanted TikTok a lot more than they actually wanted to be in TikToks, a restaurant experimenting with food, and a business finding
another way to bring its employees into the personality and community of the place where they work.
Then after talking to Guthrie Main Street, the question got
bigger.
TikTok may not just be a place to advertise a pizza, a
bakery or a downtown event.
It may be another way for small-town organizations to reach
people they haven't traditionally reached, particularly younger people.
And it may give the people already inside those
organizations and businesses another reason to participate in telling the story
of their own community.
For Tiny Town Pizza, that means marketing, customer relationships
and something that looks a lot like community building happening at the same
time.
For Guthrie Main Street, it is also about something bigger:
getting young people to see their community as something they can be part of
now, rather than something they might leave and eventually return to.
Whether TikTok can actually accomplish all of that remains
to be seen.
But there is already enough happening to make the experiment
worth watching.
Kristen has agreed to let me come back in six months and see
what worked, what didn't and where Tiny Town's TikTok has gone.
For now, the experiment is still underway.
Check out the TikTok's and Interview!
If you haven't followed these businesses in Guthrie on TikTok, get on it, follow these links:
Tiny Town Pizza and Subs: Tiny Town Pizza and Subs - TikTok
Guthrie Main Street: Guthrie Main Street - TikTok
Old Soul Ventage Co: Old Soul Vintage Co. - TikTok
Schlabach's Bakary: Shlaboch's Bakary - TikTok
To read the transcripts from my interview with Kristen at Tiny Town Pizza, here's the link:
An Interview With Kristen Harper, Owner of Tiny Town Pizza and Subs
