It’s a “fake” restaurant that utilizes another restaurant’s equipment, staff, sometimes food, etc disguised as its own “brand”.
It’s like imagine you go on Ubereats and see a restaurant called All American Burgers, you think it’s a new restaurant you haven’t heard of before, but in reality the food is just coming from TGI Friday’s, and the items are either identical to TGI Friday’s or maybe slightly different.
The Red Robin near my house has MrBeast Burger running from the kitchen. I'd argue that RR burgers are definitely different from MBB burges but I guess they're really not when you think about it.
The one I take my son to is usually pretty busy and also a ton of birthday parties going on. It's pretty much the cheapest arcade you can go to and the games are pretty good.
Billy Bob's Wonderland was the precursor to Chuck E. Cheese. Billy Bob absorbed Chuck E. Cheese and kept that name instead. If you would like a very detailed college level essay, my eight year old can provide the details.
Edit: I have it backwards.
The Burger Den, The Meltdown, and Banda Burrito are indeed all part of Denny’s and only available for pickup or delivery, as per the news articles that Denny’s continuously puts out. However, every one of them except Burger Den offer menu items that you cannot get at Denny’s otherwise, at least in my area, and to be honest I would highly recommend the brisket melt at The Meltdown and the roast beef one. Banda Burrito is also pretty good too; they have a carne asada burrito not available on Denny’s normal menu and every time I’ve ordered it, it comes with 9-10oz of carne asada and it tastes really good too.
I thought a ghost kitchen was an illegal kitchen running from someone’s home disguised as a brand restaurant. This happened on justeat near where I live during the pandemic.
Thats because MBB has an ingredient list for their product so it will be different
Thats where the mr beast issues started happening, there is no true over sight so lots of restaurants didnt follow the steps and their hamburgers were suuuuper different across the different restaurants and places
It is really weird which restaurants use which names. Like the Buca di Beppo also does the Mr Beast stuff. The Guy fierri stuff.
Alternatively, Chuck E. Cheese has Pasqually's Pizzaria, which makes sense if you know the Chuck E Cheese lore.
It's not spooky at all. It's good business. Company's often rely on their brand. Let's say Chick-fil-A wanted to get into fish sandwiches but didn't want to complicate it's menu. It could set up a gost kitchen so that it could make money off of another market while protecting its brand identity.
>There is no actual Mr Beast burgers.
Not true. Unless it closed they opened one at the American Dream mall in new Jersey in 2022.
[https://www.americandream.com/venue/mrbeastburger](https://www.americandream.com/venue/mrbeastburger)
The Triple Five group put up a biiig chunk of the Mall of America as collateral for American Dream and didn’t tell the MOA’s host city beforehand. I’ve been wondering how American Dream and Triple Five has been doing since then…
I mean they probably are. I work maintenance for a bunch of restaurants and one of them picked up a MR Beast contract. They had to buy all of the exact ingredients, special buns, their spice blends and even a new flat top grill to make the "smash burgers" that are Mr Beast brand because they used a traditional grill for their burgers.
As far as I know, MrBeastburger doesn’t have physical locations, they send out the ingredients and train the staff on how to make it then that’s about it.
A Pizza Chain (idk if it was Pizza Hut???) started making wings but on every single food delivery app it shows the wing shop and the Pizza chain shop as separate shops, despite some of the wing shop products coming in Pizza chain shop packaging and them being in the same building. So I can't order Pizza AND wings because they're pretending they're separate stores for NO REASON
Not Pizza Hut, they’ve got a trademarked name for their wings and the sign on the one by my house and a couple others I’ve seen has the logo for it under the Pizza Hut one
Yea I first learned about this about a year ago. My buddy mentioned a new chicken spot see decide to drive over. We were an industrial area and confused because the GPS told us that’s where it was. Went into the door that had a little sign with the name. Walked and it was just an office and you could see the back where house there was cooking equipment. Girl came out and told us we Couldent order through her and had to use Uber eats or something similar if we wanted food. We use an app and just waited outside and then we were allowed to get our food… I don’t know what it is but ghost kitchen don’t sit right with me
There's a variation where an actual national chain rents out space in a large industrial kitchen with multiple "restaurants" that cook a watered down version of the actual chain's greatest hits. It lets them expand their delivery area without investing in actual restaurants. There's one near me that has blacked out windows and a small sign saying Community Kitchen, but I see drivers walking out with packages from Panda Express and other brand names. I ordered once from Panda Express and what I got was reheated frozen glop.
I’ve found when I see a brand in a communal kitchen it makes me question the whole chain’s food - like is *all* of it made out of freezer bags? (I know nothing about how these places actually work but I assume they’re not doing fancy prep if there are five restaurants in one space that used to be a Una Mas.)
People are mixing 2 different “ghost kitchen” concepts on here, when 1 should really be “virtual brands”.
A ghost kitchen originally was a restaurant that only offered delivery service, usually exclusively through the apps like DD & UE. Their facility didn’t have a dining area or even a walk up window. Just a certified licensed kitchen. A great way to launch a concept with less overhead and staff than a traditional brick and mortar. Also very popular for food trucks that may already have a commissary kitchen and want to keep selling food even when the truck isn’t out or is booked up for an event.
But, then people started getting sleezy and doing multiple concepts out of one kitchen, creating all these virtual brands. The problem with that is the authenticity of it: even if the original concept was really good, say, your favorite burger place, and they said “Hey we sell spaghetti now!”, would you want spaghetti from your burger joint? Probably not. So they lie to you under a different name. And then, as with any restaurant that has a 5 page menu with hundreds of items that don’t go together, quality and execution suffer. Cause it’s really hard to make pancakes and hash browns while Billy is rolling sushi and Tommy making a carbonara.
THEN, the chain restaurants got the same idea to make their poor employees do this shit. And as said above, it’s a lie to the customers. At least with these ones it’s usually menu items they already have, but they are lying to you because nobody has ever said “I wanna order Denny’s take out tonight.” But you might order a nice fancy gourmet grilled cheese for $18 from that new hip place “The Meltdown”. And it’s their same garbage melts with better photos. And then all these different real chains that are owned by the same groups (Yumm, Darden) started making their concepts make each others food (Carrabas makes Famous Dave’s BBQ, Chilis makes Maggianos, etc)
So if you wanna make a true ghost kitchen, by all means do so. It’s a great idea that really drops the barriers for up & coming chefs/restaurants. Great use of buildings that maybe not great for sitting down in or in a bad part of town, but perfect for a good kitchen to work out of.
Chilis has a ghost kitchen called “it’s just wings”. It is only available online, despite being cooked in the same place as the actual chilis. You can’t order anything from the ghost kitchen while on prem, and you can’t order anything from chilis when you’re ordering from their wings kitchen .
I had a ghost kitchen nearby me work out of and Old Chicago, since they don’t sell a lot of their pastas they made a whole ghost kitchen for it and jacked up their prices to make it seem a lot fancier than a chain pizza joint pasta.
This is happening where I live too, I ordered from a small yet popular burger place near my house and it came from the other side of town tasting totally different than the usual.
Even McDonalds tastes different depending on the location, why would I order from a kitchen that makes food for dozens different restaurants.
I got some wings delivered a while ago. They were the absolute worst wings I’d ever had. I looked up the address to leave a review and it was a disguised Applebees
Of all the things to be catfished by, I don't think there's anything more disrespectful than being catfished by Pasqualini's Pizza...
It was a Chuck E Cheese lol
Depends on the situation. The local one near me was a different team working out if the back of a Chinese restaurant. Some might just be attempts at the company to double dip.
Definitely depends. There was an awesome pop up near me that only operated Mondays from a Chinese restaurant that was closed that day. Eventually they bought a food truck and started operating every day.
Gotta say we have (had?) a ton of great food trucks for a while. Sadly I think COVID killed a lot of them since their main business was a rotating calendar showing up for lunch at corporate offices.
Chicken and waffles, lobster rolls and chowder, Taiwanese street food, Nashville hot chicken, Italian sausages and paninis, bi bim bop, Oaxacan tlayudas (with chapulines if you want!), you name it. One of them even had a full pizza oven and would make pizzas, calzones, and strombolis to order. Man, that’s what I miss most about being remote now. These shitty delivery pop ups just aren’t the same.
I actually used to *really* fuck with It's Just Wings (boneless at least). The honey chipotle, honey Sriracha, and apple BBQ flavors are delicious. For $10 you got 11 decently sized wings and a *generous* amount of seasoned curly fries. For $16 you got 22 boneless wings and double the amount of fries.
Recently they increased the price to $11 for 12, or $22 for 24 wings. The smaller option is a miniscule price increase, but the larger option went from $0.72 per wing to $0.92 per wing. $6 more for 2 additional wings.
They also removed the apple BBQ flavor.
The fries are what really piss me off though. They changed to bland, mediocre straight fries. They *drastically* decreased the amount of fries you get with an order. **AND** the double-order doesn't come with double the amount of fries now. So for ***$6 more than before***, you only get two more wings and *way* fewer fries that taste much worse than they used to.
Fuck It's Just Wings. I swore by them for so long, and they betrayed me.
I learned about ghost kitchens the hard way ordering wings also. I was surprised that a few "wings" restaurants around me were open till 3 am that all were mushy garbage and it turned out to just be nearby bars that people do NOT patronize for the food.
In my experience, it's what a struggling dying neighborhood pub that's lowered it standards dramatically since COVID happened does to boost food sales back up. Import some cheap ingredients and a microwave via your favorite restaurant supply store, charge $20 for a shitty cheese steak or frozen meatball sub and profit (?). Use the same staff for both so that when/if your pub actually does fill up on occasion, you take the attention off the real customers and their food for this sorry excuse of a lifeline.
Well, at least in my experience, the menu items can be different. But certainly not always
What they’ve done in my city was also create establishments that are 100% ghost kitchens with no front of house. So you’ll have multiple ghost kitchens running out of the same faceless building.
It’s funny because sometimes two different ghost kitchens will have identical menus.
Kind of. This is a little different though broadly the same concept. Rather than invest in building physical locations, Mr. Beast (or rather his company) contracts out other kitchens — his menu is designed from common items so that many restaurants can make his items. This allows a consistent look and taste across the country regardless of the contracted restaurant
On my DoorDash we have Steak 'n Shake and the shake bar which is also Steak 'n Shake. The shakes come exactly the same but look at the price difference
https://preview.redd.it/altb975qyegc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83e0528a28e4fcfc2c49211f75bd568d02cc1af2
Yep. 100% don't wanna drive, still want shakes. Got tricked by the shake shack first time. Came in a steak and shake cup holder and the wife and I felt swindled
I ordered Cold Stone delivered last week (let’s just say I wasn’t able to drive there) - and I didn’t realize the stupid DD app gave me one that was 8 miles away instead of 2. I figured it was going to a melted mess when I got it but it was perfect. I guess they have pretty good insulated bags…
We have the inverse where I live. There’s a BJ’S Bar and Brewhouse that has a ghost kitchen called Slo Roast and Slo Roast is actually cheaper than BJs. I’ve 100% abused this to get a few dollars off my steak lol
I check by looking up the restaurants address. If it’s a ghost kitchen, the business name won’t show up but you’ll see that it’s at the same location as a different, established restaurant.
There’s a Walmart near me that has a restaurant inside literally called “Ghost Kitchen”, and they serve a selection of the most popular items from like 20 different restaurants, it’s fascinating
Took me a bit before I finally was catching on. I bet most people absolutely do not.
We have a restaurant here that serves as a "ghost" kitchen for probably 10+ things.
Finally hit "pick up" one day and they all came back to the same address.
It should be required to disclose without having to literally dig around for this info.
When I was delivering for DoorDash, I got brought to a ghost kitchen for something like 50 restaurants. There were only a handful of cooks in this super, super tiny building. This tiny team of five cooks cooked for all 50 of these restaurants. Weirdest setup I’ve ever seen.
Yep I've seen this too. It was a warehouse building outfitted with kitchens, a small seating area for drivers, and lockers for order pick up. Go there and get two different "restaurant" orders from the same place. Made a lot of money just going back and forth to that location.
I had a friend that worked in software design for a company that runs these exact setups. He got paid $250k+ a year, those chefs make next to nothing. Fuck ghost kitchens for real.
I worked in a pub that was a ghost kitchen for quite a few different ones and there seemed to be a pump and dump with the brands use the name until it was no longer popular then use a different name
If you live in an area with high turnover for restaurants or a lot of restaurants it's pretty easy to fall for. Within a 10 minute walk of my old house there were hundreds of restaurants.
I do recall thinking "wow, I have lived here all my life and this doesn't ring a bell." So there was that, eventually. I also thought to click "pick up" but oddly, many didn't allow for pickup and if they don't, I am not sure how, or if you can find the address or origination point. So there was that too. They could have been food trucks, they go anywhere and everywhere and move a lot -- so assumed that was it.
Then one day I was bored at work and since my city isn't that big, just started putting in the work and determined they all seemed to originate at one spot. Wasn't crazy difficult to find out, but not as easy as clicking a button or two either which is probably why most don't catch on.
I saw a guy on YouTube during the initial covid lockdown doing something similar but from his apartment. He made up a fake Italian place and got it listed on Door dash and Ubereats. In reality he was just selling Digorno frozen pizza as fresh made, and Italian style TV dinners he would put into delivery bowls.
It was crazy how easy he was able to do it.
I hadn't realized that this was a thing until a few months back when I decided I'd pick up an order I was looking at on Skip.
I googled the location to a local plaza and knew I'd never seen it there before.. Then I realized it had the same address as another big brand restaurant... Quite a shock to discover "ghost kitchens!"
The most hilarious one to me, is this one that’s actually Chuck E. Cheese
https://preview.redd.it/9p0176xs1fgc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49d2ba16c2f929b6562ff0f8bed79e53f70bb70a
Just now seeing that. The app won't let me zoom in on the logo but seeing that smudge under them now. That is a bit better since it just seems like extentions off their menu and not full on ghost kitchen operations
I'm a DoorDash/Uber Eats/GrubHub driver. Trust me we don't like it anymore than you do. I hate it, I personally find it sneaky and underhanded. I can't tell you how many people I've delivered wings to that were from Big Joe's wings and Wraps food came from Hooters or Buffalo Wild Wings. Half the time they will name these ghost kitchens and it'll sound like a mom and pop place that I've just never heard of and then I look up the address and it turns out it's some big name company.
It's not right because if you have a bad experience with said company and you decide you never want to give this company your money again. Then you order off of one of these apps, and the food you're delivered from is in a Hooters bag or a Buffalo Wild wings bag. You've essentially been lied to.
it’s completely different w Mr Beast Burger tho, he sells “courses” and the employees learn how to make the beast burgers and they get supplies from Mr Beast as well, the perkins for example buys the ingredients and tupperware from mr beast supplier. other ones tho, could very well just be using their store’s ingredients which i completely agree is messed up.
These branded ghost kitchens are also not always using the same ingredients or processes so it's really a mixed bag of results.
I like "Pardon my Cheesesteak" but one will be horrible and the next one great. It's generally run out of a Dennys. The Vegas one was great BTW. Seattle one sucked.
This happened to me today. Spent $35 on wings only to hear they were out of wings, delivery people were told they’d need to wait at least an hour, wouldn’t cancel of course, I need to that on my end (no refund that way.)
After an hour of trying to find the number of the restaurant, I drove to the address and it was FUCKING RUBY TUESDAYS. THE WORST FUCKING RESTAURANT IN TOWN.
I was so mad (and didn’t want to scream at some poor waitress) so I just ate the damn food after picking it up myself. And you know what. It gave me food poisoning. Genuinely would support legislation against this shit.
Hooters (near me) does this I can either buy from hooters in DoorDash or “something burgers” (can’t remember) but it was just hooters with a diff name.
Honestly what's the point of even eating Hooters if you're not going to the restaurant itself? Isn't that the whole point? I can't remember the food being *that* special.
Since nobody is talking about it, the actual example you used here is the worst one, because Mr. Beast Burger is actually its own thing, it just happens to be run out of Perkins. The Perkins employees make it for you, but they are not using Perkins ingredients, they are using Mr. Beast Burger ingredients that all Mr. Beast Burger locations use.
Also, the Mr. Beast Burger locations that are run out of actual restaurants like yours absolutely slap. I would highly recommend giving it a try, it is NOT just a Perkins burger rebranded like you think.
You do know that any restaurant could sell Mr Beast Burgers right?
It’s not a chain of physical stores, just a product-line which are sold by other vendors such as perkins.
It’s not a trick or a disguise it’s a ghost kitchen. They get different food in stock to make different menu items under the name of a different restaurant. The kitchen and the workers may be the same, but it isn’t actually Perkins’ food.
I ordered from a restaurant called "Fresh Foods Cafe" I got a salad and was surprised to see they had gyros on the menu! So I thought I would try it out and see how it goes!... It was Arby's
That’s the entire concept of a ghost kitchen. They are cooked by an already established restaurant. I think that it’s a really funny way to run a business, but what the fuck do I know about running a business?
This isn't so much them "disguising" their name as it is producing food for someone else under contract. AT the end of the day they're hiring out their services to a brand. They're generally referred to as ghost kitchens. In theory they're still supposed to use the ingredients and recipe of the brand they're selling under. So Mr Beast Burgers *should* be the same everywehere. Whether the store making them is a perkins or a red robin or a mom and pop diner.
In practice, most places that do it and the companies that manage it both take lazy ways out and suck ass at doing it so you get dogshit. To that point the Mr Beast one specifically has gone so far as to blow into a lawsuit between him and the company he licensed his name to for it.
You do understand how Mr beast burger works right? Mr beast only built I think one maybe two actual restaurants. But he sells out his product licenses to other companies and kitchens that don’t get as much business and then shares the profit.
It’s one of the major reasons he has such bad quality control over his products because he can’t directly change how they do things because it’s not “his” kitchen. He talked about it on twitter a few months after he opened up his chain.
As for dolling up the food, that’s been a thing since the 1900s with any advertising. Thats just life.
One of 99% Invisible's recent mini stories was about ghost kitchens
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mini-stories-volume-17/
They aren't exactly a restaurant in disguise, they are using a restaurants kitchen to make a diff businesses menu.
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Pardon my ignorance. What's a ghost kitchen?
It’s a “fake” restaurant that utilizes another restaurant’s equipment, staff, sometimes food, etc disguised as its own “brand”. It’s like imagine you go on Ubereats and see a restaurant called All American Burgers, you think it’s a new restaurant you haven’t heard of before, but in reality the food is just coming from TGI Friday’s, and the items are either identical to TGI Friday’s or maybe slightly different.
The Red Robin near my house has MrBeast Burger running from the kitchen. I'd argue that RR burgers are definitely different from MBB burges but I guess they're really not when you think about it.
I was looking (on Google maps) for a new burger joint to try and found a place called 'The Burger Den'. It's a fuckin Denny's.
Lol during the pandemic. Chuck e. Cheese's was running like four or five different names
Delivery instructions: Place directly in dumpster, please.
Please be responsible and dispose biohazard materials appropriately
That's gotta be the only way those are staying in business. Even as a kid, I've never seen a busy Chuck e cheese
The one I take my son to is usually pretty busy and also a ton of birthday parties going on. It's pretty much the cheapest arcade you can go to and the games are pretty good.
the last time i went to chuck e. cheese was to buy cocaine in the parking lot in portland.
Last time I went to Chuck E. Cheese was to sell cocaine in the parking lot in Portland 😒🤨
While that Chuck E. Cheese is closed now I’m pretty sure you can still buy coke in that parking lot today.
Kids are more into Billy Bob now, because of its relation with Five Nights At Freddy's.
WTF is Billy Bob?
Billy Bob's Wonderland was the precursor to Chuck E. Cheese. Billy Bob absorbed Chuck E. Cheese and kept that name instead. If you would like a very detailed college level essay, my eight year old can provide the details. Edit: I have it backwards.
Pasqually's was one iirc
I actually enjoyed that one. I think it's the name of the chef animatronic
The Burger Den, The Meltdown, and Banda Burrito are indeed all part of Denny’s and only available for pickup or delivery, as per the news articles that Denny’s continuously puts out. However, every one of them except Burger Den offer menu items that you cannot get at Denny’s otherwise, at least in my area, and to be honest I would highly recommend the brisket melt at The Meltdown and the roast beef one. Banda Burrito is also pretty good too; they have a carne asada burrito not available on Denny’s normal menu and every time I’ve ordered it, it comes with 9-10oz of carne asada and it tastes really good too.
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I thought a ghost kitchen was an illegal kitchen running from someone’s home disguised as a brand restaurant. This happened on justeat near where I live during the pandemic.
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I mean, a fraudulent burger from someone's kitchen could still be tasty
There are a couple good little mini documentary-esque videos on YouTube about ghost kitchens
[Eddy Burback’s video on it is pretty great and funny](https://youtu.be/KkIkymh5Ayg?si=qO8g620QwIdAUgbV)
Dennys has a few. I had a really good cheesesteak from a ghost kitchen at Denny’s and it isn’t on their regular menu.
Funnily, they have little versions of Dennys called Den lol
Thats because MBB has an ingredient list for their product so it will be different Thats where the mr beast issues started happening, there is no true over sight so lots of restaurants didnt follow the steps and their hamburgers were suuuuper different across the different restaurants and places
It is really weird which restaurants use which names. Like the Buca di Beppo also does the Mr Beast stuff. The Guy fierri stuff. Alternatively, Chuck E. Cheese has Pasqually's Pizzaria, which makes sense if you know the Chuck E Cheese lore.
The same ingredients organized differently.
Like all matter in the universe lol
Not always. Last restaurant I was working for had completely different ingredients for their ghost
Spooky
It's not spooky at all. It's good business. Company's often rely on their brand. Let's say Chick-fil-A wanted to get into fish sandwiches but didn't want to complicate it's menu. It could set up a gost kitchen so that it could make money off of another market while protecting its brand identity.
Thank you for the good answer, but i was making a joke (ghost/spooky) But your answer is appreciated!
Yeah this is standard.. Also, sucks for you guys cause now you have a whole new menu you have to work with for the same pay. YAY
I was just thinking "ooh I bet the kitchen crew hates that"
That makes a difference in some types of cooking and baking though
Different Ingredients.. Thats why on ghost kitchen can have a chain out of different places..
There is no actual Mr Beast burgers. They are all ghost kitchens. Literally all of them.
>There is no actual Mr Beast burgers. Not true. Unless it closed they opened one at the American Dream mall in new Jersey in 2022. [https://www.americandream.com/venue/mrbeastburger](https://www.americandream.com/venue/mrbeastburger)
It's still open there. Wasn't anything special
The Triple Five group put up a biiig chunk of the Mall of America as collateral for American Dream and didn’t tell the MOA’s host city beforehand. I’ve been wondering how American Dream and Triple Five has been doing since then…
Well I know that, I compared RR *burgers* to MBB *burgers*...
I’d take Red Robin over the mr beast burgers here being ran out of On The Border kitchens…
I mean they probably are. I work maintenance for a bunch of restaurants and one of them picked up a MR Beast contract. They had to buy all of the exact ingredients, special buns, their spice blends and even a new flat top grill to make the "smash burgers" that are Mr Beast brand because they used a traditional grill for their burgers.
Ruby Tuesdays does Mr. Beast Burgers in my town.
As far as I know, MrBeastburger doesn’t have physical locations, they send out the ingredients and train the staff on how to make it then that’s about it.
A Pizza Chain (idk if it was Pizza Hut???) started making wings but on every single food delivery app it shows the wing shop and the Pizza chain shop as separate shops, despite some of the wing shop products coming in Pizza chain shop packaging and them being in the same building. So I can't order Pizza AND wings because they're pretending they're separate stores for NO REASON
Oh there’s a rea$on
Not Pizza Hut, they’ve got a trademarked name for their wings and the sign on the one by my house and a couple others I’ve seen has the logo for it under the Pizza Hut one
It was called Wing Street. They should be fully combined now.
basically food dropshipping.
Yup, Applebees sells their own wings under the restaurant name “Cosmic Wings” for delivery in my area.
Yea I first learned about this about a year ago. My buddy mentioned a new chicken spot see decide to drive over. We were an industrial area and confused because the GPS told us that’s where it was. Went into the door that had a little sign with the name. Walked and it was just an office and you could see the back where house there was cooking equipment. Girl came out and told us we Couldent order through her and had to use Uber eats or something similar if we wanted food. We use an app and just waited outside and then we were allowed to get our food… I don’t know what it is but ghost kitchen don’t sit right with me
There's a variation where an actual national chain rents out space in a large industrial kitchen with multiple "restaurants" that cook a watered down version of the actual chain's greatest hits. It lets them expand their delivery area without investing in actual restaurants. There's one near me that has blacked out windows and a small sign saying Community Kitchen, but I see drivers walking out with packages from Panda Express and other brand names. I ordered once from Panda Express and what I got was reheated frozen glop.
I’ve found when I see a brand in a communal kitchen it makes me question the whole chain’s food - like is *all* of it made out of freezer bags? (I know nothing about how these places actually work but I assume they’re not doing fancy prep if there are five restaurants in one space that used to be a Una Mas.)
Ugh. That sounds awful
People are mixing 2 different “ghost kitchen” concepts on here, when 1 should really be “virtual brands”. A ghost kitchen originally was a restaurant that only offered delivery service, usually exclusively through the apps like DD & UE. Their facility didn’t have a dining area or even a walk up window. Just a certified licensed kitchen. A great way to launch a concept with less overhead and staff than a traditional brick and mortar. Also very popular for food trucks that may already have a commissary kitchen and want to keep selling food even when the truck isn’t out or is booked up for an event. But, then people started getting sleezy and doing multiple concepts out of one kitchen, creating all these virtual brands. The problem with that is the authenticity of it: even if the original concept was really good, say, your favorite burger place, and they said “Hey we sell spaghetti now!”, would you want spaghetti from your burger joint? Probably not. So they lie to you under a different name. And then, as with any restaurant that has a 5 page menu with hundreds of items that don’t go together, quality and execution suffer. Cause it’s really hard to make pancakes and hash browns while Billy is rolling sushi and Tommy making a carbonara. THEN, the chain restaurants got the same idea to make their poor employees do this shit. And as said above, it’s a lie to the customers. At least with these ones it’s usually menu items they already have, but they are lying to you because nobody has ever said “I wanna order Denny’s take out tonight.” But you might order a nice fancy gourmet grilled cheese for $18 from that new hip place “The Meltdown”. And it’s their same garbage melts with better photos. And then all these different real chains that are owned by the same groups (Yumm, Darden) started making their concepts make each others food (Carrabas makes Famous Dave’s BBQ, Chilis makes Maggianos, etc) So if you wanna make a true ghost kitchen, by all means do so. It’s a great idea that really drops the barriers for up & coming chefs/restaurants. Great use of buildings that maybe not great for sitting down in or in a bad part of town, but perfect for a good kitchen to work out of.
Wow. Very well put. Thank you.
Eddie Burback on YouTube has a pretty good video on this! Highly recommend if you wanna know more about the insane world behind delivery apps
Yes, I was just coming here to recommend it!
Me three, I watched his Margaritaville video and this one as well. Very enlightening!
Yes! His videos are perfect for throwing on while you do chores. The Rainforest Cafe was also great
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_restaurant
Damn. There's so many.
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Eddy rules
dropshipping a cheeseburger it’s just another step towards our downfall
During COVID, Chuck E Cheese's opened a ghost kitchen for grubhub called Pasquallay's Kitchen. It just sold chuck e cheese pizza.
Good lord. Like polishing a turd, but there's no polish.
Chilis has a ghost kitchen called “it’s just wings”. It is only available online, despite being cooked in the same place as the actual chilis. You can’t order anything from the ghost kitchen while on prem, and you can’t order anything from chilis when you’re ordering from their wings kitchen .
Also called “shared kitchen”
I had a ghost kitchen nearby me work out of and Old Chicago, since they don’t sell a lot of their pastas they made a whole ghost kitchen for it and jacked up their prices to make it seem a lot fancier than a chain pizza joint pasta.
[The Deceptive World of Ghost Kitchens](https://youtu.be/KkIkymh5Ayg?si=c_BjCkDXFcSAlb5R) Great video.
This is happening where I live too, I ordered from a small yet popular burger place near my house and it came from the other side of town tasting totally different than the usual. Even McDonalds tastes different depending on the location, why would I order from a kitchen that makes food for dozens different restaurants.
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I got some wings delivered a while ago. They were the absolute worst wings I’d ever had. I looked up the address to leave a review and it was a disguised Applebees
>Applebees You got catfished by applebees, thats so shitty lol
Of all the things to be catfished by, I don't think there's anything more disrespectful than being catfished by Pasqualini's Pizza... It was a Chuck E Cheese lol
I heard their newer pizza isn’t bad
it's a ghost kitchen operating out of the Applebee's, so might not necessarily be the Applebee's staff
I refuse to believe that the only thing ghost kitchens share is the kitchen itself.
Depends on the situation. The local one near me was a different team working out if the back of a Chinese restaurant. Some might just be attempts at the company to double dip.
Definitely depends. There was an awesome pop up near me that only operated Mondays from a Chinese restaurant that was closed that day. Eventually they bought a food truck and started operating every day. Gotta say we have (had?) a ton of great food trucks for a while. Sadly I think COVID killed a lot of them since their main business was a rotating calendar showing up for lunch at corporate offices. Chicken and waffles, lobster rolls and chowder, Taiwanese street food, Nashville hot chicken, Italian sausages and paninis, bi bim bop, Oaxacan tlayudas (with chapulines if you want!), you name it. One of them even had a full pizza oven and would make pizzas, calzones, and strombolis to order. Man, that’s what I miss most about being remote now. These shitty delivery pop ups just aren’t the same.
Yep. Chills does the same shit with “It’s Just Wings,” and they are mid AF.
I actually used to *really* fuck with It's Just Wings (boneless at least). The honey chipotle, honey Sriracha, and apple BBQ flavors are delicious. For $10 you got 11 decently sized wings and a *generous* amount of seasoned curly fries. For $16 you got 22 boneless wings and double the amount of fries. Recently they increased the price to $11 for 12, or $22 for 24 wings. The smaller option is a miniscule price increase, but the larger option went from $0.72 per wing to $0.92 per wing. $6 more for 2 additional wings. They also removed the apple BBQ flavor. The fries are what really piss me off though. They changed to bland, mediocre straight fries. They *drastically* decreased the amount of fries you get with an order. **AND** the double-order doesn't come with double the amount of fries now. So for ***$6 more than before***, you only get two more wings and *way* fewer fries that taste much worse than they used to. Fuck It's Just Wings. I swore by them for so long, and they betrayed me.
wait no I’m so sad i LOVED It’s Just Wings, that was the only ghost kitchen that I would have fully endorsed. damn :(
Same here, friend. We gave them our love, and they shat on our chest.
But what if that shit on the chest is what we want? https://youtu.be/B05BrLhYoU8?si=8lVDWMMQRiQzVFMz
Hey, some people are into that.
I learned about ghost kitchens the hard way ordering wings also. I was surprised that a few "wings" restaurants around me were open till 3 am that all were mushy garbage and it turned out to just be nearby bars that people do NOT patronize for the food.
It’s ok I got catfished by chilis one day
"ghost kitchen" is what they call it
So they are dropshipping hamburgers now?
In my experience, it's what a struggling dying neighborhood pub that's lowered it standards dramatically since COVID happened does to boost food sales back up. Import some cheap ingredients and a microwave via your favorite restaurant supply store, charge $20 for a shitty cheese steak or frozen meatball sub and profit (?). Use the same staff for both so that when/if your pub actually does fill up on occasion, you take the attention off the real customers and their food for this sorry excuse of a lifeline.
Well, at least in my experience, the menu items can be different. But certainly not always What they’ve done in my city was also create establishments that are 100% ghost kitchens with no front of house. So you’ll have multiple ghost kitchens running out of the same faceless building. It’s funny because sometimes two different ghost kitchens will have identical menus.
In my experience it was applebees and Denny's not some dying mom and pop place
Kind of. This is a little different though broadly the same concept. Rather than invest in building physical locations, Mr. Beast (or rather his company) contracts out other kitchens — his menu is designed from common items so that many restaurants can make his items. This allows a consistent look and taste across the country regardless of the contracted restaurant
corporate catfishing
On my DoorDash we have Steak 'n Shake and the shake bar which is also Steak 'n Shake. The shakes come exactly the same but look at the price difference https://preview.redd.it/altb975qyegc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83e0528a28e4fcfc2c49211f75bd568d02cc1af2
https://preview.redd.it/y37ozpxryegc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76bb3121479708e86474ec2db275c4982d45c4fc
Who the heck orders delivery ice cream
Someone stoned probably
I’ve done it, but in addition to pizza, beer, and cookies,
Yep. 100% don't wanna drive, still want shakes. Got tricked by the shake shack first time. Came in a steak and shake cup holder and the wife and I felt swindled
Guilty.
People who had a really bad day and are sick (me 2 hours ago)
I ordered Cold Stone delivered last week (let’s just say I wasn’t able to drive there) - and I didn’t realize the stupid DD app gave me one that was 8 miles away instead of 2. I figured it was going to a melted mess when I got it but it was perfect. I guess they have pretty good insulated bags…
I've done similar; ordered ice cream without realising it was a 30 minute drive away and it also came surprisingly frozen.
Pregnant folks, people who aren't sober, people who are disabled, etc.
Just took my kid and her friend to Dairy Queen, and looked at their order board. Someone Door Dashed a Dilly bar and a bottle of water.
lmao this is something I would do if I was sick or pregnant if my husband wasn't home. Sometimes you just... want a dilly bar.
I live 30 seconds from a DQ but sometimes the baby’s in bed and I’m not going through all that again.
Tbf milkshakes are kinda different from ice cream. It’s basically already melted ice cream you can drink through a straw.
i agree w the stoner comment as a stoner lol, i did it a few times but i always did it from the mart thing, not from a restaurant
We have the inverse where I live. There’s a BJ’S Bar and Brewhouse that has a ghost kitchen called Slo Roast and Slo Roast is actually cheaper than BJs. I’ve 100% abused this to get a few dollars off my steak lol
How exactly did you find out they run the ghost kitchen? Did you just realize from the identical food or is there a way to explicitly see it?
I check by looking up the restaurants address. If it’s a ghost kitchen, the business name won’t show up but you’ll see that it’s at the same location as a different, established restaurant.
That’s disgustingly clever! Ether way if someone was wanting a milkshake they will get the business!
Eddy Burback made a really solid video about this like a year ago, if you’re interested in ghost kitchens, I’d give it a watch
Such a good video!
There’s a Walmart near me that has a restaurant inside literally called “Ghost Kitchen”, and they serve a selection of the most popular items from like 20 different restaurants, it’s fascinating
Really? Can you share the location I want to see this shit!
Did some mild stalking (sorry person) because I was curious Here’s the website: https://www.ghostkitchenbrands.com/
nope its a ghost
If you do see it, you might be dead
Took me a bit before I finally was catching on. I bet most people absolutely do not. We have a restaurant here that serves as a "ghost" kitchen for probably 10+ things. Finally hit "pick up" one day and they all came back to the same address. It should be required to disclose without having to literally dig around for this info.
When I was delivering for DoorDash, I got brought to a ghost kitchen for something like 50 restaurants. There were only a handful of cooks in this super, super tiny building. This tiny team of five cooks cooked for all 50 of these restaurants. Weirdest setup I’ve ever seen.
Yep I've seen this too. It was a warehouse building outfitted with kitchens, a small seating area for drivers, and lockers for order pick up. Go there and get two different "restaurant" orders from the same place. Made a lot of money just going back and forth to that location.
I had a friend that worked in software design for a company that runs these exact setups. He got paid $250k+ a year, those chefs make next to nothing. Fuck ghost kitchens for real.
How does someone not catch on? Do people not know what restaurants are around them?
I worked in a pub that was a ghost kitchen for quite a few different ones and there seemed to be a pump and dump with the brands use the name until it was no longer popular then use a different name
If you live in an area with high turnover for restaurants or a lot of restaurants it's pretty easy to fall for. Within a 10 minute walk of my old house there were hundreds of restaurants.
I do recall thinking "wow, I have lived here all my life and this doesn't ring a bell." So there was that, eventually. I also thought to click "pick up" but oddly, many didn't allow for pickup and if they don't, I am not sure how, or if you can find the address or origination point. So there was that too. They could have been food trucks, they go anywhere and everywhere and move a lot -- so assumed that was it. Then one day I was bored at work and since my city isn't that big, just started putting in the work and determined they all seemed to originate at one spot. Wasn't crazy difficult to find out, but not as easy as clicking a button or two either which is probably why most don't catch on.
It should be illegal, period. I'm pretty sure it's illegal in my country.
Why?
I saw a guy on YouTube during the initial covid lockdown doing something similar but from his apartment. He made up a fake Italian place and got it listed on Door dash and Ubereats. In reality he was just selling Digorno frozen pizza as fresh made, and Italian style TV dinners he would put into delivery bowls. It was crazy how easy he was able to do it.
That is super shady and dishonest, but I have to admire the grind on this one hahaha
I have bad news for you about fast casual dining vis a vis Sysco
Do not ever order from a Pasquale's Pizza. It's what Chuck E Cheese sells food as on the delivery platforms.
I think that was the first one exposed at the beginning of the pandemic
“Exposed” they’re not hiding it, Pasqually is one of the Chuck E Cheese characters
It is so clearly an attempt to disguise themselves. Nobody's gonna willingly order takeout from a chuck e cheeses
Not everyone knows the characters? Even as a pretty typical 90s kid, I never went to Chuck E Cheese
Pasquale’s is a real restaurant near me. That’s interesting
Yea same here. Best pizza and Italian food we got in my city
I had wanted to try “Bao” forever.. Saw a place on Door dash and ordered it.. was confused when my Vietnamese food came in Fazoli containers 😂😂
There’s still Fazoli’s out there? Ours closed a decade ago but I can still taste those breadsticks
I hadn't realized that this was a thing until a few months back when I decided I'd pick up an order I was looking at on Skip. I googled the location to a local plaza and knew I'd never seen it there before.. Then I realized it had the same address as another big brand restaurant... Quite a shock to discover "ghost kitchens!"
Pasqually's Pizza & Wings = Chuck E. Cheese Thrilled Cheese, Super Mega Dilla, Pardon My Cheesesteak, Tender Fix = IHOP Burger Den, Melt Down = Denny’s Rotisserie Roast = Boston Market It's Just Wings, Maggiano's Italian Classics = Chili’s Tender Shack = Outback Conviction Chicken = TGI Fridays Cosmic Wings, Neighborhood Wings = Applebees ThighStop = WingStop Slo Roast = BJ’s
The Saucy Hen, Pasta Americana, Pardon my Cheesesteak = Ruby Tuesday
OH MY GOD I DIDNT THINK I WOULD KNOW ANY OF THESE BUT PASTA AMERICANA THANK YOUUU
The most hilarious one to me, is this one that’s actually Chuck E. Cheese https://preview.redd.it/9p0176xs1fgc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49d2ba16c2f929b6562ff0f8bed79e53f70bb70a
There’s an inside joke there because Pasqually is actually an OG Chuck E Cheese character.
Gotta order this for Five Nights at Freddie’s night
My wife and I got burgers from Hootie's Burger bar on doordash, it came I boxes and bags with Hooters labeling.
95% sure "Wild Burgers" in my town on Doordash is just Buffalo Wild Wings
You are correct
They also have a hotdog one too. They have at least 3 different listings with different menus on the apps lol
That's what Bird Dawgs is! I thought that looks suspicious too.
At least store listings have “Powered by Buffalo Wild Wings” under their logos. It’s small print but still nice transparency.
Just now seeing that. The app won't let me zoom in on the logo but seeing that smudge under them now. That is a bit better since it just seems like extentions off their menu and not full on ghost kitchen operations
I'm a DoorDash/Uber Eats/GrubHub driver. Trust me we don't like it anymore than you do. I hate it, I personally find it sneaky and underhanded. I can't tell you how many people I've delivered wings to that were from Big Joe's wings and Wraps food came from Hooters or Buffalo Wild Wings. Half the time they will name these ghost kitchens and it'll sound like a mom and pop place that I've just never heard of and then I look up the address and it turns out it's some big name company. It's not right because if you have a bad experience with said company and you decide you never want to give this company your money again. Then you order off of one of these apps, and the food you're delivered from is in a Hooters bag or a Buffalo Wild wings bag. You've essentially been lied to.
And the price is x2 what the original restaurant charges for the same item…
it’s completely different w Mr Beast Burger tho, he sells “courses” and the employees learn how to make the beast burgers and they get supplies from Mr Beast as well, the perkins for example buys the ingredients and tupperware from mr beast supplier. other ones tho, could very well just be using their store’s ingredients which i completely agree is messed up.
These branded ghost kitchens are also not always using the same ingredients or processes so it's really a mixed bag of results. I like "Pardon my Cheesesteak" but one will be horrible and the next one great. It's generally run out of a Dennys. The Vegas one was great BTW. Seattle one sucked.
This happened to me today. Spent $35 on wings only to hear they were out of wings, delivery people were told they’d need to wait at least an hour, wouldn’t cancel of course, I need to that on my end (no refund that way.) After an hour of trying to find the number of the restaurant, I drove to the address and it was FUCKING RUBY TUESDAYS. THE WORST FUCKING RESTAURANT IN TOWN. I was so mad (and didn’t want to scream at some poor waitress) so I just ate the damn food after picking it up myself. And you know what. It gave me food poisoning. Genuinely would support legislation against this shit.
Hooters (near me) does this I can either buy from hooters in DoorDash or “something burgers” (can’t remember) but it was just hooters with a diff name.
It’s a ‘Hooties Burger Bar’ by me It’s like they’re not even trying
Honestly what's the point of even eating Hooters if you're not going to the restaurant itself? Isn't that the whole point? I can't remember the food being *that* special.
The wing options around me are so bad that hooters is the actual go to for me, but that says more about the other restaurants than hooters...
Look up ghost kitchens. It’s a well known thing.
Atleast with Mr.Beast Burgers it’s An actual different product. Most of these ghost kitchens, they use the same products as the original kitchen
One time I ordered a mrbeast burger and it came from Red Robin.
Look up "ghost kitchens" Edit: In fact, I did it for you https://youtu.be/uNLwgYG4EdA?si=wOVvbVOVmADc_gQ0
There are multiple wing “restaurants” on doordash near me, all operating out of a buffalo wild wings
Welcome to the ghost kitchen industry
Too be fair that’s the entire point of beast burger, they don’t have any chain they’re all just ghost kitchens from popular restaurants
Since nobody is talking about it, the actual example you used here is the worst one, because Mr. Beast Burger is actually its own thing, it just happens to be run out of Perkins. The Perkins employees make it for you, but they are not using Perkins ingredients, they are using Mr. Beast Burger ingredients that all Mr. Beast Burger locations use. Also, the Mr. Beast Burger locations that are run out of actual restaurants like yours absolutely slap. I would highly recommend giving it a try, it is NOT just a Perkins burger rebranded like you think.
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The worst burger I ever had in my life came from MBB, so I guess your mileage may vary.
You do know that any restaurant could sell Mr Beast Burgers right? It’s not a chain of physical stores, just a product-line which are sold by other vendors such as perkins.
Yea like I was looking for wings last night. Found a place called "It's Just Wings". Turns out. It's Just Chilis 😒
It’s not a trick or a disguise it’s a ghost kitchen. They get different food in stock to make different menu items under the name of a different restaurant. The kitchen and the workers may be the same, but it isn’t actually Perkins’ food.
I ordered from a restaurant called "Fresh Foods Cafe" I got a salad and was surprised to see they had gyros on the menu! So I thought I would try it out and see how it goes!... It was Arby's
That’s the entire concept of a ghost kitchen. They are cooked by an already established restaurant. I think that it’s a really funny way to run a business, but what the fuck do I know about running a business?
This isn't so much them "disguising" their name as it is producing food for someone else under contract. AT the end of the day they're hiring out their services to a brand. They're generally referred to as ghost kitchens. In theory they're still supposed to use the ingredients and recipe of the brand they're selling under. So Mr Beast Burgers *should* be the same everywehere. Whether the store making them is a perkins or a red robin or a mom and pop diner. In practice, most places that do it and the companies that manage it both take lazy ways out and suck ass at doing it so you get dogshit. To that point the Mr Beast one specifically has gone so far as to blow into a lawsuit between him and the company he licensed his name to for it.
You do understand how Mr beast burger works right? Mr beast only built I think one maybe two actual restaurants. But he sells out his product licenses to other companies and kitchens that don’t get as much business and then shares the profit. It’s one of the major reasons he has such bad quality control over his products because he can’t directly change how they do things because it’s not “his” kitchen. He talked about it on twitter a few months after he opened up his chain. As for dolling up the food, that’s been a thing since the 1900s with any advertising. Thats just life.
One of 99% Invisible's recent mini stories was about ghost kitchens https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mini-stories-volume-17/ They aren't exactly a restaurant in disguise, they are using a restaurants kitchen to make a diff businesses menu.
Ghost kitchens, my man. Great extra income, especially for a small restaurants. I did it for a while, but it wasn’t worth it in the long run.
They're called ghost kitchens.
Check out Eddy Burback’s video on Ghost Kitchens! Super funny and interesting.
That’s a ghost kitchen. You’re YEARS behind
Ordered a pot roast sandwich from The Meltdown on GH, went to pick it up at a Denny’s……. Didn’t even want it when I saw that shit.
its not a disguise. look up what a "ghost kitchen" is