Remember Lucky? Viral Abu Dhabi street cleaner dances into new job

Lucky was hired by Rain Cafe in Abu Dhabi because of his internet stardom

Lucky Etinosa ​​​​​​​ will be serving coffee and training to become a barista at Rain Cafe, Abu Dhabi.

Lucky Etinosa, the cheerful Abu Dhabi street cleaner who stole hearts across the internet with his dance moves, now has a new reason to have a spring in his step. The Nigerian, 27, was recently hired as a waiter by Rain Cafe, Abu Dhabi, thanks, in part, to a video of him dancing which went viral in 2019.

“I hired Lucky because he’s amazing. We saw the dancing video where he was cleaning the streets," says Lokman Alubaidi, the operations manager at Rain Cafe. "The owner of the cafe sent me the Twitter screenshot that he was looking for a job. That’s how I heard about him.”

After the video of him dancing while clearing rubbish from Abu Dhabi streets went viral, Lucky was inundated with positive messages from well-wishers, and even job offers.

"When my first video went viral, I thought I'd lose my job. I never thought that I would get so many job offers. I really thank God for that," Lucky told The National. "I am also thankful to all those who shared my video online which led to this job."

So, it looks like Abu Dhabi's much-loved dancer will now be giving the cafe life a whirl. Besides serving coffee, he is also training to become a barista. But it looks like his internet fame is going to follow him around for some time; Rain Cafe has had a number of people come in to meet him.

“I will dance [for them] also, sure,” says Lucky. “I try to make my customers happy in this cafe because so many of them know me. So when they see me, they are happy. I try to make the customers happy, try to make things easy for them and serve them well.”

Alubaidi has added that Lucky is spreading love and joy among the customers, with his enthusiasm.

Rain Cafe has had a number of people come in to see Lucky

Within a day of Lucky's dancing video being posted, it had been viewed more than 200,000 times on Twitter and had racked up almost 3,000 retweets. On Instagram, it earned more than 22,000 views in the same duration.

The National caught up with the dancing sensation, who was both surprised and pleased by the buzz, soon after.

"I always listen to music to make the work lively. It helps me to work very well. It keeps me going," he said at the time.

And it looks like it’s going to keep leading him to good things.