A TikToker and a YouTube star reviewed my taco restaurant and went viral. It helped save my struggling family business.

• Kimberly Nguyen is the co-owner of a family-run taco business based in Hawaii and Las Vegas.

• One day, Nguyen was given a chance to film a video with internet celebrities Keith Lee and MrBeast.

• This is the story of how the video changed her life and business, as told to Charissa Cheong.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kimberly Nguyen, and it has been edited for length and clarity.

For just over two years, my husband Kevin and I have been living out our dream of owning our own business, but it's taken a lot of hard work and endurance to get here.

During the pandemic, we were both out of a job, because we used to work in events and hospitality, but everything was closed because of COVID-19. My husband moved to Oklahoma to work in construction, and I stayed at our home in Honolulu, Hawaii, because I was pregnant at the time.

One day, I was having a pregnancy craving for tacos, but found that it was really hard to find good Mexican food near me. I cooked some tacos myself, and everyone in my family loved them, telling me I should start making them to sell. Months later, I asked my husband to come back to Hawaii so we could start our own business together. We started off by selling tacos out of our house, and then we eventually bought our own food truck.

Fast-forward to today, and we own two shops, one in Hawaii and the other in Las Vegas, Nevada. Though we had been managing to stay afloat, we found that business was slower than we expected. There were times when we couldn't make rent for the month because we were making under $1,000 in sales on some days, and we also had to pay our staff with that money.

But one day, a TikTok star named Keith Lee walked into our restaurant, and everything changed. Thanks to him, we ended up in a video with the biggest YouTuber in the world, MrBeast, who gave our business a whole new level of exposure.

At first we thought we'd missed our chance to experience the 'Keith Lee effect,' but then MrBeast got involved

We found out that Keith Lee paid a visit to our Vegas restaurant because one of our cashiers recognized him. I'd been following him on TikTok for a long time and heard stories of how he helped to save struggling businesses by posting reviews of them on social media, but I never thought he would come into our store.

Keith posted a review of some of our products in early January, and he said the food was "delicious." While other restaurant owners say they received an influx of customers after getting a positive review from him, we didn't get to see the "Keith Lee effect" because our shop got broken into, and we were busy dealing with the aftermath.

But thankfully, Keith posted another video about us in late January, this time as part of a series he was working on in collaboration with the most-followed YouTuber in the world, MrBeast.

Keith was selecting one restaurant based in Vegas that he would bring to MrBeast's attention, and that business would get the opportunity to film with him and MrBeast.