Ryan Gosling Surprises Coffee Shop Owner After Social Media Campaign

It’s not every day that a celebrity waltzes into a small, local coffee shop. But hey, we can dream, can’t we? Absolutely! And that’s exactly what Joelle Murray, the owner of Grinder Coffee Shop in Toronto, decided to do. She dreamed big and started a petition to get Ryan Gosling to visit while he was in town for the Toronto International Film Festival, promoting his new movie “First Man.”

Her campaign started with a cardboard cutout of the hunky actor. People were more than willing to pose with “Ryan” and tweet the pics with the hashtag “#RyanNeedsGrinder.”

At first, the posts were good for a laugh:

More and more people came in to pose with the cutout — even the mayor of Toronto stopped in! The campaign began to gain some traction.

News outlets began covering Murray’s pleas, and her nephew tweeted about how the once-small campaign became a viral sensation. “Over the past week, she planned and executed this hilariously tongue-in-cheek social campaign to get Ryan Gosling to visit her shop during TIFF,” the nephew tweeted. “On paper it was maybe a little ridiculous and maybe a little cheesy and definitely wasn’t supposed to work.”

But it did work.

Yes, that’s right. On the afternoon of Sept. 11, the Canadian actor paid a visit to her small but mighty coffee shop and even gave her a hug. There’s a photo to prove it:

“And this happened… #ryanneedsgrinder worked. The man himself showed up,” Murray tweeted from the coffee shop’s Twitter account.

She finished by writing, “Take that @idriselba your loss.” The shop previously petitioned to have actor Idris Elba stop by, but unfortunately, he never showed.

Murray’s nephew explained the situation after talking with his aunt. In her words, “he just showed up and told me he saw the whole campaign, I told him next time he comes for dinner and a playdate,” the tweet read:

Murray also told NBC’s “Today” show that Gosling said his mom, who lives in Toronto, played a role in having him stop by.

“His mother definitely has free coffee for life here,” she told “Today.” “They really did raise a nice boy. He was an incredibly good sport. My little family business is on the map and he really did show some awesome kindness. I’m feeling emotional about it. He didn’t have to take time out of his crazy schedule to visit my 800-square-foot shop. It shows the power of kindness.”

Her nephew also noted on Twitter that it shows “success isn’t always something that’s measured tangibly”:

He’s right about that! Success can definitely be measured in Gosling visits.

So now it’s Grinder Coffee Shop, 1, the rest of the world, 0.