This Ontario Pizza Shop Just Got SO Popular After A Local Prank Went Viral (VIDEO)
What began as a prank at Pete's Pizza Bunting has now turned into a heart-warming story that's been shared all over the internet.
Ontario local Benjamin Wasylina brought a frozen pizza to the St. Catharines venue and asked them to cook it as part of a TikTok prank on March 3.
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The employee, who was unaware of the prank, had the most Canadian reaction to the request, immediately offering to help Wasylina out.
The TikTok video went viral, gaining 1.5 million views and responses from people around the world in just three days.
Narcity chatted with Wasylina and Peter Ruddy, the restaurant owner, about the video sensation.
What inspired the prank video?
Wasylina says that the frozen pizza prank was requested by one of his TikTok followers, but that he doubted it would work.
"I honestly gave up on the idea, I didn't think any place was actually going to do it."
After walking into Pete's Pizza, however, his luck changed.
"The guy who cooked my pizza was so chill about it," Wasylina recalls, adding that the employee even put it in a box and asked how many slices he wanted it cut into.
He even filmed another TikTok video where he returned to the shop and tipped the employee.
Courtesy of BroDudee
What was the response to the video?
"My Pete's Pizza Instagram page just started blowing up," Ruddy, the restaurant owner says.
"It was the most bizarre thing ever, I couldn't figure out what was going on."
After discovering the TikTok video, he says he "couldn't be happier with the outcome."
"The public reaction has been crazy [...] my Google review page has gone crazy, my DMs on my Pete's Pizza page are full of people saying positive things."
"I was definitely surprised at the overall outreach from everywhere, I had people [reaching out] from Germany, people from Sweden, people from America."
Why did you think the video went viral?
Ruddy believes the video's popularity had a lot to do with his employee's reaction.
"That's where all the positivity was coming from, just his overall genuineness."
"You could tell he didn't know that he was being recorded. Once I realized that it wasn't a staged thing, the overall positivity of it really made me smile."
"He was so laid back about it, like it was no problem at all," Wasylina says.
"It brought a lot of eyes to locally run, small businesses, and [...] I think that's the most important thing right now," Ruddy adds.