People who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s are driving some nostalgia-based sales for Cambro Manufacturing Co. Inc. — specifically Cambro's red textured glass used at a certain national pizza restaurant.
Users on social media even use the product number, Cambro 2000p157, as a hashtag to make it easy to order dozens of the SAN cups from restaurant supply stores or online distributors.
Fans on social media celebrate not just the "unbreakable" glasses, but also the distinct sound they make when they hit the floor.
And Cambro, a Huntington Beach, Calif.-based injection molder, is fully on board, posting response videos on Instagram and TikTok. It also had a giveaway of its colorful tumblers via its Instagram account.
"We're Cambro," a company executive says on one recent TikTok post. "Everyone is talking about our red cups, and we're going to make it our whole personality."
Not going to lie, whoever is handling the social media accounts — including replies — is doing a great job engaging with the public. "The year is 2023 and I am following the red restaurant cup account on TikTok," one commenter said, followed by a quick response from Cambro: "What a time to be alive."
Cambro, with U.S. manufacturing in California and North Carolina, makes more than plastic glasses. It is a longtime supplier to restaurants and the foodservice industries making storage containers, bins and trays.
The tumblers were first made in the early 1980s and while Gen Xers and millennials may just be rediscovering them now, Cambro has made sure to point out that they never went away.