Plenty of food influencers are happy collecting free meals and staying comfortably behind the camera. Marcello, the creator behind @marcelloeats, is choosing the much harder path: actually opening a restaurant.
With nearly 140,000 followers on Instagram and over 115,000 on TikTok, Marcello has spent years building an audience by reviewing viral food spots across southern Ontario and beyond, reaching a level of local food-influencer stardom that few in the city can claim. Rather than continuing to spotlight other people’s restaurants, he’s now channeling that following into Cello’s Cheesesteaks, a concept built around a genuine, long-running obsession.
In the first video announcing the project on the newly created Cello’s Cheesesteaks Instagram account, Marcello explains that opening a restaurant has been a dream of his for nearly as long as he’s been making food content — but one he deliberately held off on until he felt ready to do it properly. Having spent so much time inside restaurants covering other people’s work, he says he has enormous respect for what it actually takes to run one, and knows he can’t approach it half-heartedly. His cheesesteak fixation runs deep too: for close to a decade, he’s sought out as many versions as he could find across the GTA, including making dedicated trips to Philadelphia in pursuit of the real thing.
Whether an engaged online following successfully converts into a lasting bricks-and-mortar business remains an open question — plenty of influencer-led food ventures have struggled to make that jump. But few go into it with the level of hands-on industry exposure and genuine specialty knowledge that Marcello is bringing to Cello’s.
Curious to see if the hype translates to the plate? Follow @marcelloeats and the new @cellos.cheesesteaks account for opening updates.