From $3K to $10K: How a Family Kitchen Became Vancouver’s Hidden Thai Gem: The Story of Call Me Jake Thai Food
- Puii Duangtip
- Oct 30, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2025
The first time I met P’Muay, she was at my front door, holding a bag of homemade Thai food I’d been craving for days and smiling the way she always does when she meets her customers — with the warmth of someone who simply loves seeing people enjoy her food.
That became our weekly ritual. I’d order her food, and she’d deliver it herself — always arriving with a laugh and a quick check-in about our latest marketing ideas. Between bites of spicy papaya salad, we brainstormed content ideas, small experiments, and growth tactics.
Meanwhile, little Jake — the restaurant’s tiny CEO and namesake — would run around my living room, giggling and exploring. Those were our best strategy sessions: half brainstorming, half friendship, fueled by chili, laughter, and purpose.
The Beginning: A Hidden Gem at Thai Fest
When I first discovered Call Me Jake, it wasn’t online — it was at the Vancouver Thai Festival. My friend handed me a bite of banana blossom salad and a sip of tamarind juice, raving about how good they were. I rushed to the booth to buy more, only to find everything sold out.
At that time, Call Me Jake was a delivery-only Thai kitchen. Their food had a small but loyal following within the Thai community, yet outside that circle, few people knew it existed.
Monthly sales hovered around $3,000, and P’Muay dreamed of sharing her food with a broader audience. Not just Thai expats, but locals who had never tasted the bold, layered spice of true Thai street food. Some of her dishes, in fact, couldn’t be found anywhere else in Vancouver.
That was the challenge P’Muay brought to me:
“I want people who’ve never been to Thailand to know how real Thai food tastes.”
That single sentence became our compass. Every strategy we built would begin — and end — with authenticity.
Behind-the-scenes of Call Me Jake
The Strategy: Building a Brand People Could Taste
I’ve always believed strong branding starts with character — and with Call Me Jake, the character was already rich and genuine. So before design or campaigns, I spent time listening.
We talked about her and James’ story, their favorite colors (orange and green — cozy, spicy, alive), and what “authentic” meant to them. I also gathered voices from outside — opinions, patterns, and audience insights — to design a customer journey that helped people trust a home kitchen they’d never visited.
Our guiding principle was simple:
Be unapologetically authentic.
That became the heartbeat of the brand — every decision had to taste like them.
First Collab with Call Me Jake
When resources are limited, strategy must be creative. I told her,
“It’s okay. We’ll start small and adjust around what we have. Trust me. We can grow together.”
And so, we began.
Step 1: Instagram as a Digital Storefront
With no website budget yet, we started with Instagram — our storefront, storytelling hub, and test ground. We built a feed that balanced authenticity with aesthetics:
Warm kitchen photography shot under natural light
Personal captions about Thai street food culture
Giveaways to celebrate the first 100 followers
That small campaign reached 3,519 views, 121 comments, and 53 profile visits, planting the seed of trust within a growing community.
I used Instagram analytics to learn what worked — and discovered that behind-the-scenes content consistently outperformed dish photos.
Insight: “People don’t just buy food. They buy the hands that make it.”
That insight shifted everything. From that moment on, we stopped trying to look like a brand — and started feeling like one.
Step 2: SEO-Driven Visibility
Two months later, with a small reinvested budget, I designed and launched their Wix website and Google Business Profile — connecting both platforms into a seamless digital ecosystem.
Using Google Trends and Ubersuggest, I identified top-performing local keywords like “Thai takeout Vancouver” and “authentic Thai restaurant near me.” We optimized page copy, meta descriptions, and map listings accordingly.
It wasn’t glamorous work — hours of testing, refining, and rewriting — but it was the groundwork that would quietly power everything that came next.
Step 3: Integrated Growth Loop
To create a self-sustaining funnel:
Instagram drove awareness → website visits
Website established trust → map searches
Google Maps visibility → direct pickup and delivery orders
This cross-channel strategy built both visibility and credibility.
And slowly, week after week, we saw the first sparks of momentum — people outside the Thai community began to find them. That’s when data turned into proof.
The Execution: Where Flavor Meets Digital Strategy
Instagram became our storytelling stage — not a highlight reel, but a window into real life.
Each post showed true kitchen moments:
Muay preparing fresh ingredients under warm kitchen light.
James tasting new dishes with his famously high standards.
Captions teasing, “Real Thai heat — no shortcuts.”
Those everyday details — imperfect, unfiltered — became the brand’s signature voice.
Then came the website. More than a digital menu, it was a hub of trust and story.
To complete the customer journey, I built and optimized the Google Business Profile, connecting Call Me Jake directly to local searches, the moment people typed “real Thai food near me.”
Between May and October 2025, that single profile became one of their strongest growth engines:
2,175 total interactions
1,274 website clicks directly from Google Search
629 direction requests from people wanting to pick up food themselves
This wasn’t just visibility — it was connection. Every click meant someone new discovering Call Me Jake kitchen, every direction request meant a person driving across town for her food.
Sometimes, data doesn’t just tell you numbers — it tells you that people are listening.
The Breakthrough: From Cold Calls to Loyal Fans
And just as we began to find our rhythm — balancing daily posts with new orders — something magical happened.
Three days after launching the website and Google Business Profile, something magical happened:
A cold-call order from someone who had never heard of Call Me Jake. Then another. And another.
The strategy worked. People were discovering the brand organically — through stories, search, and curiosity.
Within months:
Monthly sales grew from $3,000 to over $10,000.
37,053 Instagram views in 90 days
250% increase in profile link clicks
Website (Jun 16–Oct 28, 2025): 1,860 visitors, 2,729 sessions (↑ 80% higher engagement than similar sites).
Organic search: 29% of total traffic (↑ 58% above average).
The latest post announcing their first restaurant gained 985 views and 89 likes in just 24 hours.
This wasn’t about ads or discounts.
It was about human connection at scale — turning stories into trust, and trust into sales.
Every review, every click, every returning order reflected one simple truth:
When marketing feels human, growth follows naturally.
The brand now holds a 4.8★ Google rating from 20+ local reviews.
Even better, 5–10 customers now order weekly — not because of promotions, but because they’ve become friends who believe in the food and the story.
Call Me Jake Instagram Account
Reflection: Marketing That Feels Human
Working with Call Me Jake reminded me that marketing isn’t about selling — it’s about showing people why something matters.
Every meeting felt less like a business review and more like a shared journey. I’d bring analytics and insights; P’Muay would bring her instinct, laughter, and belief that “real Thai food doesn’t need to be watered down.”
Together, we learned how authenticity and data could coexist — flavor and logic, side by side.
Today, I’m no longer just their freelance marketing strategist. I’m their long-term partner, helping shape the brand as they prepare to open their first brick-and-mortar restaurant in Vancouver.
And every time I think back to that Thai Festival booth — the banana blossom salad, the tamarind juice, the sound of Jake’s laughter — I’m reminded that sometimes, the most powerful marketing starts at the kitchen door.
The Heart of It All
No matter what a business is about — food, tech, or finance — at its core, every business is about people.
If we understand people well enough, we can build something more than sales or clicks. We can build connections — the kind that turn customers into friends, and friends into lifelong supporters.
And that’s how a small Thai kitchen named Call Me Jake grew — not just through strategy, but through heart. Through the laughter of a family, the trust of a community, and the unmistakable scent of chili and lemongrass that started it all.