She’s a part-time food blogger and a full-time entrepreneur. Her name is Lillwaukee and you’ve probably seen her on your TikTok For You Page highlighting Milwaukee restaurants.
Lillwaukee is one of the most followed influencers in Milwaukee, amassing over 38,400 and 13,900 followers on TikTok and Instagram respectively. Her TikTok account has over 2.1 million likes, and her videos average thousands of views. She asked the Marquette Wire to leave out her last name and instead refer to her by her nickname “Lilly.”
She posts lifestyle content featuring local businesses, with a central focus on Milwaukee’s colorful dining scene.
In addition to her successful social media career, Lilly holds a full-time job in the financial technology industry and runs a small catering business called Bleu Sheep, that builds large-scale charcuterie boards for events in the Milwaukee area.
Before starting her catering business, Lilly did not have a professional culinary background and instead cites her late mother for her interest in food.
“She was a single mom, so we spent a lot of time together cooking,” Lilly said. “Before she passed away, she always made birthdays and holidays super special through food. I would look forward to those special meals or the Christmas cookies she would make.”
Lilly’s social media fame did not happen overnight. On the contrary, she has been posting food videos since she moved to Milwaukee almost 10 years ago.
“It takes time, commitment, organization skills,” Lilly said. “I had an Instagram account. It was called Bite MKE, and I did strictly food reviews and it never really popped off; I was focused on my regular job. I didn’t have really the time to commit to it.”
She started posting lifestyle content on her Lillwaukee account as early as 2020 and would not post her first food video until 2023, when she posted videos showcasing the best things she ate each month. However, Lilly’s account did not get much attention until April this year when she started posting food reviews more consistently.
Lilly’s main motivation to start posting was a feeling that there was a gap in the market for Milwaukee dining content.
“I love watching people go to restaurants in bigger cities like New York or Chicago,” Lilly said. “Milwaukee really doesn’t have somebody who goes on TikTok and Instagram, shows their face and eats and describes it through voiceovers.”
Now, dozens of dining influencers have popped up in Milwaukee, and while many, like Lilly, started posting for fun, they have started to carve out an important role in the industry.
77% of Gen Z and 67% of millennial diners report finding restaurant recommendations through social media, according to a 2025 survey by Eater. The restaurant industry is chaotic and unstable, but a single post from an account like Lillwaukee can guarantee more business.
This naturally leads to businesses reaching out to influencers with a free meal in exchange for a review, a common practice in the industry that Lilly has participated in before but does not want to continue.
“I feel better about just paying for my own food and supporting small businesses, especially small women-owned businesses,” Lilly said.
Lilly also acknowledges the inherent special treatment that can come from having a large following, but at the end of the day, she still believes she receives the same food as everyone else.
“They’re not going to just switch up their recipe just because I walk in there,” Lilly said.
Despite the potential for bias, Lilly said there are significant advantages to social media food reviews compared to the work of traditional dining critics.
“You can see how the cheese pulls. You can see your food come out steaming hot. You can get live reactions,” Lilly said. “I’m showing you exactly what the restaurant looks like right then and there when I went.”
Her favorite restaurant is Birch, which she recently awarded best burger in Milwaukee according to her personal rankings. Sweet Smoke Barbecue, a Texas barbecue food truck located outside Hawthorne Coffee Roasters, is another one of her favorites. In early November, the restaurant teamed up with Lilly to make a sandwich called the Not-So-Lil. The sandwich was piled high with brisket, pulled pork and a butterflied jalapeño-cheddar sausage link and was only available for a week.
To follow Lilly’s journey as she builds her personal brand and features the restaurants she loves, you can follow her on TikTok @lillwaukee or on Instagram @lill.waukee.
This story was written by Joey Schamber. He can be reached at [email protected].
