Restaurants on DoorDash, Grubhub, and UberEats aren t always what they seem. Here s how to spot a ghost menu
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‘Ghost kitchens are getting out of control’: Customer calls out ‘fake restaurants’ that have same address as IHOP on DoorDash
With the growth of delivery apps has come a concurrent rise in “ghost kitchens”— restaurants with no physical presence outside of food delivery.
While some ghost kitchens are wholly independent, others coexist inside existing restaurants. Chuck E. Cheese sparked controversy recently after it was revealed that locations were operating ghost kitchens in their restaurants under the name “Pasqually’s Pizza.” In some cases, whole franchises have opened using ghost kitchens, such as the initial offerings from the MrBeast-owned MrBeast Burger.
Although these restaurants have found success, their existence can annoy or mislead customers who want a more “authentic” restaurant experience. Now, a user on TikTok has gone viral after sharing two restaurants she claims are actually ghost kitchens operating out of an IHOP.
In a video with over 2.5 million views, TikTok user Ghoulie (@ghouliegolightly) takes to the DoorDash app to call out two “restaurants.”
“Look at the graphics. It’s obvious,” she says of the restaurants. “Super Mega Dilla and Thrilled Cheese. Those are both IHOP. Both of these have the same address and it’s IHOP.”
Ghoulie is correct; both Super Mega Dilla and Thrilled Cheese are “virtual brands” operated by IHOP. The breakfast diner announced the move in May of last year as a partnership with virtual restaurant provider Nextbite.
But as TikTok commenters pointed out, IHOP is not alone in exploring virtual kitchen ventures.
“My favorite is ‘it’s just wings’ and it’s chilis haha,” wrote one user, referencing one of Chili’s virtual brands.
“IM A DASHER AND CAN CONFIRM. ‘Cosmic wings’ is run out of the local Applebees,” alleged another. This is also correct.
“The Burger Den being Dennys I can’t,” offered a third. Again, this is a virtual brand run out of Denny’s locations.
While some users don’t mind the ghost kitchen trend, others think it has gone too far.
“They’re BOTH in my ihop and like… why don’t i get paid for those orders too? like i’m working for THREE companies now,” explained a commenter.
“Because of this phenomenon I quite literally google every restaurant I come across on Uber eats,” claimed a second.
Update Jan 12, 4:11pm CT: In an email to Daily Dot, an IHOP spokesperson shared the following: “IHOP partners with Nextbite to offer guests delivery-only brands, which operate in more than 1300 locations across the US.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Ghoulie via Instagram direct message.
Update 8:40am CT, Jan. 14, 2023: In an Instagram direct message exchange with Daily Dot, Ghoulie elaborated on her issues with ghost kitchens.
“I think, in the case of, say, someone who runs a pop-up restaurant renting out some kitchen space so they can serve their food full-time without the expense of a food truck or storefront, that’s an awesome avenue to be available to them. However, as a quick browse through DoorDash seems to show, the majority of these virtual brands are a couple of corporations running 3-4 food joints out of a single restaurant,” she detailed.
“That raises a couple of questions to me: Is the staff being compensated for working, essentially, for multiple restaurants instead of the single one they got hired and are paid to work for?” she continued.
Ghoulie claimed the people in her comment section discussing their experiences working at these chains running these virtual brands seem to indicate that they “do not get additional tips or pay for this additional labor, and instead these online orders disrupt the flow of work they have set up to serve the customers they were hired to serve, making their primary job more difficult.”
“Another concern is, even if the folks running these virtual brands are providing the ingredients for the staff of this other restaurant to use, as some comments seem to indicate, what motivation do they have to invest in quality when they essentially have no real repercussions for providing sub-par food?” Ghoulie said.
She explained if a physical restaurant gets a reputation for “bad food,” that the word spreads and reviews pile up but that “this place barely even exists as a real entity.”
“If they get a bad rap for serving garbage, the brand can just disappear and pop back up under another name,” she continued. “That kind of complete lack of transparency, I believe, in a business model that encourages absolute minimum investment to generate maximize profits, leads to something that ultimately isn’t good for the community its customer base is drawing from.”
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Restaurants on DoorDash, Grubhub, and UberEats aren’t always what they seem. Here’s how to spot a ‘ghost’ menu.
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- Thousands of virtual brands are flooding delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub.
- Some consumers mistake these ghost brands for real brick-and-mortar restaurants.
- Here’s how to spot a virtual restaurant on the three delivery apps.
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Man vs Fries. Mama Roma. El Taco Loco. The Salad Station. Pizza Mania. MrBeast Burger.
One might think these are niche concepts serving diners classic American staples in restaurants across the US.
But, consumers are not dining inside any of these restaurants. Instead, they’re ordering takeout or delivery from them on apps like DoorDash.
Menus made in ghost kitchens have erupted on delivery apps over the past five years. Uber Eats, for example, first began helping restaurants develop delivery-only brands in 2017. By 2019, Uber had more than 3,000 virtual restaurants listed in its app in the US. Today, the company said its app hosts “tens of thousands of virtual restaurant storefronts.” But it’s difficult to know if you’re ordering from one.
These ‘virtual restaurant’ menus typically hawk one type of dish, like chicken wings. And most operate inside established restaurants looking to boost sales by creating their own menus or licensing and selling one or two delivery-only brands. Some virtual restaurants operate in food trailers run by Reef Technology, ghost kitchens like Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens, or food halls like Kitchen United.
According to a joint report by Grubhub and the market-research firm Technomic, 41% of independent restaurants are operating virtual restaurants. Many of those operators say they plan to add multiple virtual brands to their existing kitchens in the next 12 months.
When the delivery movement accelerated during the pandemic, virtual restaurants went from an innovative menu trend to a bonafide disruptive industry. The trend spawned virtual restaurant companies such as Nextbite, Virtual Dining Concepts, Absolute Brands, and C3. The segment has the potential to become a $ 1 trillion business by 2030, according to Euromonitor.
Many diners still want their food from a ‘real’ restaurant, though. According to the National Restaurant Association’s latest “State of the Industry” report, 74% of the adults surveyed said it was important for their food to be delivered from a place with a physical location that was accessible to the public.
But how do delivery users know when they’re ordering from a virtual restaurant or a brick-and-mortar food joint?
Some concepts are easy to spot as they are well-publicized brands backed by celebrities, such as Packed Bowls by Wiz Khalifa, DJ Khaled’s Another Wing, Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen, and Mariah Carey’s Cookies.
Still, some with generic names like The Chef Burger or Plant B are easy to mistake for brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Here are some tips on how to discover if a restaurant you’re ordering from is a virtual brand:
DoorDash
Of the three major apps, DoorDash is the most transparent when it comes to identifying virtual brands.
DoorDash has been labeling virtual brands on its app for more than a year.
“Beyond disclosing the address where meals are prepared, DoorDash has labeled virtual brands with a standalone store page banner since March 2021,” the company said.
The label typically appears at the top of the restaurant’s page before the menu.
For example, DoorDash labels MrBeast Burger as “A concept from MrBeast. Brought to you by Virtual Dining Concepts.”
Virtual Dining Concepts is a company that creates delivery-only brands and licenses them to ghost kitchen operators like Reef Technology. MrBeast Burger is one of the company’s most successful virtual brands, delivering from more than 1,000 locations, according to the BBC. MrBeast Burger opened its first brick-and-mortar restaurant in September to throngs of fans.
DoorDash provides a “learn more” section for virtual brands, calling them “stores created exclusively for delivery or pickup through services like DoorDash.”
“They may be owned by or closely affiliated with an existing company. They may also prepare their menu out of another store’s facilities or in a kitchen without a storefront. We’ll clearly label virtual brands, so you always know when you’re ordering from one.”
Uber Eats and Grubhub
Uber Eats and Grubhub do not label virtual brands.
“These brands are labeled as restaurants in the Uber Eats app. Our perspective is that a virtual restaurant is a real restaurant,” Uber Eats told Insider.
With a bit of sleuthing, there’s still a way to determine if you’re ordering from a ghost restaurant from these apps.
All three delivery providers disclose the addresses of restaurants on their app – virtual or brick-and-mortar.
Using a MrBeast Burger in Orange, California, on Grubhub as an example, here’s how I determined that it was a virtual restaurant.
Plug the address on Mr. Beast’s listing into Google Maps. In this case, the address is 1500 East Village Way. There’s a Red Robin restaurant that shows up with the same address on Google. I called the restaurant to double-check, and an employee confirmed that the chain sells MrBeast as a delivery-only menu. It is unavailable to order for dine-in or on Red Robin’s app.
On Uber Eats, it works the same. For example, a MrBeast Burger in Houston, Texas, has the same address as Kroger.
With help from Google, I learned the supermarket chain has a Kitchen United ghost kitchen inside the store.
Another tip? The Miami address for the virtual brand Sam’s Crispy Chicken is listed as “MIA07-2” on the Uber Eats app. Whenever you spot an abbreviated city or landmark location like that, it means the menu is prepared inside one of Reef Technology’s food trailers. The ghost kitchen, which has struggled with operations over the past year, works with virtual brands and chains like Wendy’s.
Are you a delivery app insider with insight to share? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or via Signal encrypted number 714-875-6218.
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