Andrew Cosentino grew up here in Baltimore. He moved away, and after college moved back to Baltimore city to start his career. He is not a professional instagram influencer. Social media started as his way to explore what is good in our city — on his own personal account. Slowly but surely his friend group discovered Andrew was sharing useful, descriptive suggestions for beer, coffee, and restaurants. He began to get more follower requests. Eventually, it was going to happen, his friends nudged him to take his account public. Baltimore is better for his quality posts. He’s sharing what makes this city wonderful, quirky, delicious and welcoming. He’ll go to great lengths to capture just the right photo at just the right angle, in just the right light, even if it requires planning hours and days ahead.

He’s kindly agreed to come on Holy Guac and shares one instagrammers’ perspective on useful tips and tricks that owners and teams could use. If you follow Andrew, you notice that he takes his role seriously, with an occasional photo of his patient, lovely wife. If you’ve been following, yes, they did get married during the pandemic, HUZZAH! That said, his personal life is not the focus. The camera is on our city’s businesses. He’s sharing what’s happening in Baltimore restaurants, cafes, breweries, and more! We hear what he thinks will be helpful and actionable. We talk about planning ahead, collecting photos, lighting, hashtags and communicating with your followers. Commenting and engaging on other people accounts is immensely important. And restaurants should share a guests’ photo on a business feed—it’s easy content, and guests are usually delighted to have their photo seen by more people. Of course, always ask for permission and give photo credit.

His message is clear: engage in community, have fun. He’s enjoying what he does, and the community of restaurants appreciate the kindness. Now, go look his feed up, and go get a coffee, beer or a meal (your choice: to go, or dine in). Support local.