When Tattooed Mom opened in 1996, the walls were a blank, freshly painted beige. One by one, friends and community members started adding art to the space: colorful graffiti tags, cheeky stickers, and homemade wheatpaste prints. The result today is what owner Robert Perry calls “beautiful chaos.” “We really wanted to create a space that invited that sense of creative, collective ownership, and celebration,” he said.
For nearly three decades, the business has evolved the same way as its walls: little by little, with organic input from the community. The bar and restaurant, which locals call “TMoms,” is known today for its punk rock style, community-based mission, and enduring presence on South Street, Philadelphia’s art district.
“[My co-founder and I] both lived in the neighborhood and saw a need for a community-based space that was for our tribe of people—artists and skateboarders and musicians and street artists and a little bit of everybody to come together and find community,” Robert said.
A lot has changed in 27 years: TMoms now boasts an entire vegan and vegetarian menu and hosts community events nearly every night, with a staff member dedicated just to event production. The business also saw the rise of Yelp—earning its first review in 2005—and grew along with it, taking advantage of new features like the LGBTQ-owned attribute and organically growing its reviews to now more than 760.
“We’ve been around so long that people who had kids when we first started, their kids are now sitting on the other end of the bar, 25 years old,” Robert said.
But despite decades of change, TMoms’s community ethos remains intact. “If you’ve been around for 27 years, you’re going to hopefully evolve. I think that you need to,” Robert said. “My whole point of view is that we have a real heart. What we do and our identity and who we are, we’re very comfortable with it, and we’re very proud of it. And we base all of those decisions on who we are, what our heart is.”
Below, Robert shares three crucial ways TMoms has evolved to better serve its community over the years. Plus get tips from Robert for how your business can do it too.
1. From kitchen experiments to a vegan mainstay
Food has always set TMoms apart, thanks to its secret menu items and weekly food specials, like Taco Tuesdays and Pierogi Thursdays. But one of its biggest draws—the vegan menu—came about organically.
In the 2010s, TMom’s vegan and vegetarian staff would often make plant-based versions of their favorite menu items, like the classic Philly Cheesesteak or Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich. Interest in their creations was greater than expected.
“At first it was just for themselves or as a staff meal, [but over time] we just wanted to share it with our larger community,” Robert said. “Now it’s developed to the point where we have a mirrored menu, where almost anything that’s available for maybe an omnivore is also available for a plant-based or a plant-based-interested person.”
Although the menu evolved, TMoms didn’t alter its marketing strategy: According to Robert, word-of-mouth and organic support from the community was enough to bring in an influx in plant-based diners.
The restaurant also benefited from the rise of review platforms like Yelp, where nearly a third of TMoms reviewers mention “vegan” or “vegetarian” cuisine. The menu is now a main draw for reviewers like Al S., who found TMoms while searching for a vegan-friendly spot to take his grandson. “The main reason for coming was that they have really good vegan food,” he wrote. “We came on a Wednesday to get their smash burger special.”
TMoms offers a Meatless Monday special every week, so diners can try a plant-based meal at a discounted rate. “You can bring everybody with you. You can bring your mom, your dad, your grandpa, your friends, and hopefully there’s something for everybody on the menu—whether you eat plant-based food or don’t—so you can actually try the same sandwich and see which one is more interesting to you,” Robert said.
2. From bar to bustling community space
Tattooed Moms has always been a community space. “People celebrate everything from baby showers to memorial services and everything in between,” Robert said. “Every kind of life event that you can think of, people have celebrated there.”
But over the years, its events have become more organized and intentional. Today, there’s almost always something happening at TMoms: drag shows, arts and crafts nights, poetry readings, stand-up comedy, and more. Nearly all the events are free for attendees and organizers. TMoms also employs a staff member devoted to booking and communicating with event producers.
This aspect of the business has always been important to Robert, who got his start producing events in Philly nightlife before he founded Tattooed Moms. He enjoys being able to give people their first opportunity to bring events to life, and sees it as an extension of the mission—not to mention, a big draw for customers.
“One of our greatest joys is being able to give the space freely to our community to use as they see fit, to produce these kinds of events that bring people together and allow them to gather as a community to exchange ideas and creative energy,” Robert said.
How can other businesses build these relationships with local organizers? According to Robert, it starts with making people feel welcome in the space. “These communities of people were already coming just to hang out and have a vegan burger or a beer or eat tacos on Tuesday. They were already in the space and hanging out. And so [we just] let them know, ‘Hey, this space is for you, and if you ever want to do something here, you’re welcome to do it.”
Photo by Mike Choch
Photo by Adrianne A. on Yelp
Photo by No Arena in Chinatown Solidarity Group
3. From word-of-mouth gem to strategic digital marketer
Tattooed Moms has always embraced a word-of-mouth marketing strategy, but that doesn’t mean the team sits back and waits for people to come to them. Robert laid the groundwork for organic growth by creating a strong online presence—in fact, TMoms was one of the earliest businesses to be claimed on Yelp, when Yelp.com launched in October 2004.
”Back then we didn’t have a website, and we had very little social media,” Robert said. “So I thought we should be represented [on Yelp] and we should have the correct information about when we’re open and where we’re located—just have that there for people to find.”
Robert’s marketing strategy has since evolved with changing technology. “We [now] have a really robust website for a bar and restaurant… [so] there’s always a place for people to land,” Robert said. “If you want to find out what’s going on tonight at TMoms, you could go to the website right now and you would see something.”
These days, the TMoms team also uses social media as an extension of the business’s community-based mission. As a result, they’re even more intentional about how they engage online, while still preserving the business’s personality and tone.
“We’re lucky we’re sort of an irreverent brand, where we can… be very honest about things and be goofy and silly and ridiculous sometimes. It’s fun to explore those facets of our identity in the social media space,” Robert said. “But we’re also serious, and we seriously use [social media] as a way of advocacy and activism, and that’s really important to us too.”
When it comes to reviews, Robert takes a more hands-off approach. He regularly reads reviews and shares them with team members as inspiration, but he focuses mainly on providing a great experience and trusts in the community he’s built to contribute reviews organically.
“In the online review space, you basically have no control over what people say about you or write about you—and that’s fine,” Robert said. “It serves a purpose of being completely community driven in terms of people sharing their experiences there. We strive every day to give people who visit us, whether it be their first time or their 100th time, a really special, unique, and enjoyable experience.”
How to encourage organic growth in your business
Robert knows better than anyone that organic growth doesn’t happen overnight. Reflecting on nearly 30 years in business, he emphasizes the importance of trusting in your identity, team, and community.
“You have to be open to who walks in the door, and to feel comfortable and solid about who you are as a business,” Robert said. “Feel solid about that, but also be open to evolution within that identity. Stay open to what presents itself, and listen to your community. What [your community] needs and wants will be your starting point.”
Listening to your staff is equally important, Robert said. Many of his employees have been with the restaurant for decades, and a few since day one, which is extremely rare in the restaurant industry: “They’ve been extremely instrumental in continuing our evolution. There’s so many creative people that have worked here over the years. People who are creative with food and people who are creative with cocktails have all contributed to making us who we are every single day.”
“To have an environment where that creativity is encouraged and celebrated and hopefully rewarded is also really important to who we are,” he added. “It’s very much a collective, collaborative effort. I’m forever grateful to all the people who have walked through our doors and helped us cook and serve and bartend and do every little thing that we do there.”
These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast, with additional insights from Robert’s exclusive Yelp 20 interview with Yelp Content Writer Emily Moon.
Additional photos from Tattooed Mom
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