MrBeast sues the ghost kitchen making his MrBeast Burger as the ghost concept struggles
Ghosting ghost kitchens… No. 1 YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson is suing Virtual Dining Concepts after fans who ordered MrBeast Burgers prepped by the company’s ghost kitchens reportedly called them “revolting” and “inedible.” Refresher: ghost kitchens prep food for delivery and pick-up. MrBeast Burger reviews have been mixed since it launched to mass hype less than three years ago because of quality-control issues. Now MrBeast wants to break his contract with VDC and shut down his burger biz.
Response: VDC says the suit is “riddled with false statements and inaccuracies” — and that it plans to keep selling MrBeast Burgers.
Not the first: Other celeb-backed ghost-kitchen endeavors have been criticized for selling subpar foods, including Tyga’s and David Chang’s.
Ghost food struggles with transparency… ironically. A single kitchen can operate several restaurants, and all that multitasking can make it hard to maintain quality control and enforce health and safety codes. Ghost kitchens exist in a regulatory gray area (since they’re not traditional restos), and while officials hash out new policies for the biz model, problems are stacking up:
CloudKitchens (created by Uber’s founder) lost numerous restaurant partners last year after an Insider report said many of its kitchens didn’t have basic sanitary features, including working sinks.
Reef Technology is pivoting to selling its software after some of its mobile kitchens (trailers) racked up health and safety infractions, including leaking sewage and explosions.
Food can’t scale like tech… Ghost-kitchen startups were hailed as dining disruptors and scored huge investment rounds during the pandemic (when everyone was ordering pad thai 2X a week). But the companies may’ve used that $$ to open too many locations too fast, sacrificing quality and safety.