The influencer’s massively standard burger week, which sees greater than 300 eating places competing for the title of Burger Master of their respective cities all through Colombia, was anticipated to incorporate greater than a dozen Miami eating places for the primary time this week.
Zuluaga met with 5 Miami restaurateurs this previous February to get the ball rolling. The plan was for every collaborating Miami restaurant to supply a choose burger for $8.99 from May 15-22 as a satellite tv for pc competitors to the one held in Colombia.
Zuluaga — whose meals suggestions are recognized to offer eating places a serious enterprise enhance — introduced the information to his 5.1 million Facebook followers and 2.4 million Instagram followers in March. Two weeks earlier than Burger Master started, he revealed that he had put his Miami plans on maintain.
Zuluaga tells New Times he wasn’t capable of renew his expiring visa in time. And with out his visa, he could not journey from MedellÃn, Colombia, to Miami to satisfy with extra potential contributors and do the media rounds.
“In Colombia, the wait time for appointments might be two to 3 years,” Zuluaga says over Zoom from his residence in MedellÃn. “My spouse has been ready for 2 years. I assumed I used to be going to have somebody assist me out, but it surely did not work out. I’ve been placed on a waitlist. And as a result of my visa expired, I now have to start out from the start. I feel I’ve an appointment set for June.”
For now, Zuluaga is specializing in the Burger Master competition happening this week in 25 cities in his native Colombia. To kick off the 2023 occasion, Burger Master handed out 6,800 burgers final week to individuals in want throughout the nation.
This yr’s version affords choose burgers for 16,000 Colombian pesos every, which involves round $3.50 in U.S. forex. Burger Master prospects — whose votes decide the winners of the annual occasion — typically wait in strains that span metropolis blocks. According to Tulio, greater than two million burgers had been offered through the 2022 Burger Master.
The occasion launched in 2017 is so standard in Colombia that it spawned Pizza Master and Sushi Master, that are additionally below the Tulio Recomienda umbrella, to not point out numerous imitators throughout the nation.
“Many of the Miami eating places that I’ve beneficial requested for a Burger Master in Miami,” says Zuluaga. “And since I’ve a following in Miami, I figured we might do one thing there. I could not work in Miami, however we might run it from Colombia.”
Though the Colombia model of Burger Master is underway, Zuluaga nonetheless hopes he can pull off a sister occasion in Miami. “If there is a option to velocity up the visa course of, it is potential that we will do Burger Master in Miami this yr. But ideally, I’d like for it to coincide with the Colombian model. Those plans are dormant, so to talk till I get my paperwork so as.”
Zuluaga says his worldwide Burger Master aspirations transcend simply Miami, with hopes to incorporate burgers from Quito, Ecuador, and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. As for different future plans, the influencer and burger maven says he has had talks with a world tv community a couple of venture that might promote eating places, not not like what he does on social media.
One South Florida restaurant that may attest to the ability of Tulio Recomienda’s promotion is Lechona la Colombiana. Tulio beneficial the Colombian meals sales space in Hollywood’s Yellow Green Farmers Market in 2022.
“Tulio’s go to helped us out an amazing deal,” says Lechona la Colombiana proprietor Diana Solina. “We tripled gross sales and, due to that, had been capable of open one other location in Pembroke Pines. It’s been a yr since he visited, and we proceed to have good gross sales and many individuals visiting us saying they came upon about us by him.”
Zuluaga has incessantly insisted that he does not receives a commission for his suggestions. He as an alternative monetizes his model along with his meals festivals, programs, conferences, and sponsors for his cooking movies and books.
The former singer additionally had just a few songs catch on again within the day, together with one which appeared within the 1996 William Baldwin movie Curdled, govt produced by Quentin Tarantino.
Zuluaga is totally conscious of his Midas contact, because the Colombian media places it, and he does not wish to take it without any consideration. “I’ve been given the chance to assist totally different companies over time,” he says. “I’m very lucky.”Â