Waffles dripping with chocolate sauce and smothered by marshmallows. Yolk oozing out of a poached egg on avocado toast. Chocolate and vanilla ice cream covered in rainbow sprinkles. These are just some of the foods featured on the “Chi-Town Foodies” Instagram account run by junior twins Elena Holceker and Katrina Holceker, and junior Isabel Saltzman. The page recently reacher over five thousand followers.

It all started in October last year. “Katrina and I went out to brunch, and we were at Orange, and we took a bunch of pictures of our food,” Saltzman said. “We brought home the idea to Elena to start posting pictures online, and so I said, ‘We should totally make a food account.’ We went over names and eventually thought of ‘Chi-Town Foodies.’”

Initially, the girls hoped to keep the account a secret. “We kept it private for the first three months,” Elena said, “because we didn’t know if people would think it was funny or not take us seriously and make fun of us.” Their friends ultimately found out when they each included a link to the account in their personal account description page.

Saltzman says that she has been interested in food photography for about two years. “It’s fun to make someone hungry or really want to eat from a photo you take,” Saltzman said. “Food is an art. We wanted our food account to show how food can be art.”

What started out as a fun side hobby has now expanded to include a Snapchat and Twitter account, with a website they expect to go public in the upcoming year. “Our Instagram is getting so much traffic, but now we want to continue expanding,” Katrina said. “With a website and other social media, we would be able to write more than just a caption to go along with the photos.”

The group’s first post on instagram was a melting s’mores cookie from Summer House. Since then, they believe their photo quality has improved and their captions have become more creative.

Katrina believes that, “posting consistently and word of mouth has allowed the account to spread so quickly.” “We try to post every day,” Katrina said. “Hopefully, if we keep this up, we can reach our next goal of ten thousand followers.”

The posting of a single picture online requires a procedure of multiple steps. First, the group takes the photo while paying close attention to angle and lighting. Then they post the photo in a shared photo stream. They vote on which photos they like the most, and when a majority agrees Katrina edits them. They collectively write a caption, and finally post the photo for all of their followers to drool over.

Recently, the account has advertised and promoted several restaurants around the city, including Lou Malnati’s Buzz Bait, located on North Wells, and Garrett’s Popcorn, with many locations throughout Chicago.

“After sending out a bunch of emails to restaurants asking to take pictures,” Elena said, “we got some responses, like an email from Buzz Bait to come to their opening and post pictures and promote their food.”

Garrett’s Popcorn sponsored a Chi-Town Foodies competition to celebrate their 60th anniversary, in which they were able to give out to each of six random followers a free gallon of holiday mix popcorn.