Ghost Kitchens

About

Ghost Kitchens, also known as Virtual Kitchens, are food service businesses that allow food vendors to operate out of preexisting kitchens, with customers being served exclusively through delivery or pick-up (often using food-delivery apps like Uber Eats). The ghost kitchen industry expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, but the spread of such virtual kitchens in the U.S. exacerbated concerns about food quality regulation and consistency. YouTuber MrBeast was prominently in the news in July 2023 for suing the virtual restaurant company Virtual Dining Concepts that was responsible for creating the MrBeast Burger on account of them allegedly selling subpar and sometimes inedible food using his name, causing a resurgence of interest in ghost kitchens.

History

The demand for food delivery services rose in the late 2010s and compounded with the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown affecting restaurants' dine-in capacities. Virtual restaurants or "ghost kitchens" create and market their own menus, and often collaborate with third-party delivery apps such as GrubHub and Uber Eats. Many such Virtual Restaurants began to operate out of preexisting kitchens in 2020 and helped brick-and-mortar restaurants stay open and minimize employee layoffs by allowing them to prepare food for multiple brands and keep themselves in business.^[1][2]

Criticism

Ghost kitchens have come under fire for reportedly encouraging unpleasant and unsustainable working conditions, with one Guardian article calling the conditions "satanic mills."^[3] Several chain restaurants have also been accused of misrepresenting their business on delivery apps and selling the same foods under different names.^[4]

Online Presence

Alongside the rise in the prevalence of ghost kitchens, various memes, discussions and other types of online content have increased over the years, particularly in the 2020s. For example, on December 9th, 2020, Twitter^[6] user @murderxbryan posted a tweet that read, "The ghost kitchen restaurants have the worst names," gathering over 900 likes in over two years (seen below, left). On December 28th, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @ChrisJBakke posted a tweet joking about the ubiquity of Ghost Kitchens in LA, gathering over 1,000 likes in two years (seen below, right).

On March 6th, 2023, YouTuber^[5] Eddy Burbank posted a video titled, "The Deceptive World of Ghost Kitchens." In the video, Burbank investigates various Ghost Kitchens in his area and also reviews the "MrBeast Burger," which operates solely out of virtual restaurants. The video gathered over 6.9 million views in four months (seen below).

MrBeast Sues Virtual Dining Concepts

On July 31st, 2023, YouTuber MrBeast announced a lawsuit against a company named Virtual Dining Concepts following months of patrons reporting that they received subpar and sometimes inedible MrBeast Burgers, which are only served by ghost kitchens. After MrBeast filed his suit, Virtual Dining Concepts defended itself against his claims, calling the lawsuit "meritless" and claiming he used bullying tactics to get himself out of his deal with Virtual Dining Concepts.^[10]

On August 1st, 2023, the YouTube^[8] channel Law & Crime posted a recap that gained over 27,000 views in one day (shown below, left). The same day, Philip DeFranco posted a recap^[9] and reaction to the news in a video that gained over 627,000 views in one day (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References