At almost 80 years old, Carlos “Tito Charly” Elizondo has gone from bagging groceries at a Monterrey supermarket to newfound fame as a YouTube cooking star and online salesman.
The spry senior offers up recipes for his more than 3,000 subscribers using ingredients such as cream cheese, chorizo, bacon and shrimp which he markets through his videos, taking orders via WhatsApp.
His most recent video, posted on June 1, shows viewers how to make snacks in celebration of beer’s return to store shelves, he says.
A father of three and grandfather of six, Elizondo lost his wife and then his daughters married and moved out. As he reached his early 70s he decided he needed to keep busy.
At the suggestion of a friend, he took a job as a grocery bagger at a nearby supermarket chain seven years ago where he worked a four-hour shift, but that ended due to the coronavirus pandemic. And once he hits 80 he will have to retire.
So he decided it was time to start a new career online, which he has done with the assistance of family members. “My wife was a very good cook, my father-in-law as well. I learned more crazy ideas from them than I can think of,” Elizondo says of his culinary creations.
He sells the ingredients under his own brand, with his daughter filming the YouTube segments, helping him take and fill orders and aiding with technological challenges facing the octogenarian. Tito Charly products are sold in Monterrey, Saltillo, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua, Torreón and Guanajuato. Orders are taken by WhatsApp at 811 102 6685.
Tito Charly posts a new cooking class each Sunday and says he hopes to reach 10,000 followers soon. “I have always been positive. I like to look ahead,” the newly-minted YouTube star says. “There are no impossibilities, there is always a way.”
