A meals transport app person uncovered a easy "hack" customers can use to spot if their food is being made via a Ghost Kitchen.
Ghost Kitchens are not anything new, relying on who you ask. There are some who say that they are simply a natural development of food cart vendors from Sumerian times, and others who say that they are a much newer phenomenon that dates again to delivery-only restaurants with a specific business model that was engendered in 2013.
If you've never heard of what a Ghost Kitchen is, the idea that is discreet and lovely smartly outlined by way of this USA Today article: "A ghost kitchen, also known as a dark kitchen or cloud kitchen, is a digital-only restaurant that is available only on food delivery apps like Postmates, UberEats, and GrubHub. These kitchens only offer food items and drinks from online brands, cutting out the storefront and human interaction of traditional eateries."
One fashionable example of a Ghost Kitchen is Mr. Beast Burger, which will often utilize the kitchens of different eating institutions in order to make particular meals items of a sure standard. The YouTube personality seems to be distancing himself from the franchise, but the practice as a entire continues to be alive and smartly, one thing that a TikToker named Sarah (@sarahshoots) spotted whilst putting orders for transport via in style applications like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats.
Sarah cautions hungry diners browsing those apps to double take a look at the addresses of intriguing new food choices of their house as these institutions could also be a place they will have no longer sought after to order from. In her clip she highlighted how with just a fast Google seek she found a number of restaurants, with different names, are in reality operating out of a Denny's, Chili's, or every other local small trade fully.
"My favorite thing to do is get on a delivery app and anywhere I haven't seen before, Google the address and see what it really is and what they're hiding," she says at the onset of her video.
Sarah continues: "You can do this on any food delivery app but for the ease of this video let's just look at Uber Eats. So here we have the burger den at 5501 Leesburg Pike. Hunh, I've never heard of the Burger Den before what's that?"
"Oh 5501 Leesburg Pike, it's a Denny's. Look at how convincing this is, look how fun the Burger Den is, Feel the Burn Burger, Vibe with Shrooms Burger. Spill the Bourbon Burger."
She continues to show off every other menu for a other Ghost Kitchen restaurant that the TikToker says is if truth be told simply a Denny's attempting to persuade shoppers that they're buying burgers from a new restaurant dedicated solely to serving up burgers, because it has the similar deal with.
"Oooh, the Meltdown 5501 Leesburg Pike, that looks kinda good. Guys, it's still Denny's they're just posing as multiple different brands. Ohooo I'm really craving some wings have you guys ever been to It's Just Wings?"
Sarah then rattles off every other restaurant for a Ghost Kitchen, and decides to take a look at the address the place the eatery is meant to be positioned: "At 6601 Richmond Highway? Cause it's Chili's, it's just a Chili's."
She displays off any other place that she finds "super interesting" but highlights that it is not simply massive chains that have interaction in this observe, but also small companies.
"Sunday Best Breakfast sandwiches, well that would be the small business bottom of the gate cafe, which also moonlights as breakfast in bed delivery on GrubHub. A lot of small businesses do it this is Billy's Cafe at 3907 Lee Highway. So here we can find them as Hatch House, 3907 Lee Highway, same address."
But as Sarah says, this eating place is also affected by a multiple-eatery-personality dysfunction: "AKA Daydream Breakfast Burritos, AKA The Salad Dream. What can't they do?"
This isn't the first time any person has aired out this custom on social media, in December of 2022, a DoorDash driver issued a warning to customers that they might want to do some research, like Sarah suggests, into ensuring that the hip new pancake area they are ordering from is not just an IHOP.
There were some audience who responded to Sarah's video that they fell prey to this rip-off. But in some cases, like this woman's husband realized, they have been possibly lacking out on one thing they liked however wouldn't have otherwise ordered because it was associated with a logo they most probably would not acquire from differently: "My husband fell in love with a pizza place called Pasquallys. Ordered it all the time. We were eating Chuck E. Cheese pizza."
Another DoorDash driver who spoke back to her clip mentioned that they, too, were to begin with confused by way of this custom but soon realized what it used to be: "This was so confusing as a doordash driver until I learned what a ghost kitchen was lol"
Someone else mentioned that they would possibly not order from a ghost kitchen in keeping with idea on my own as a result of they do not like feeling as though they had the wool pulled over their eyes: "I refuse to order from ghost kitchens out of principle haha like how dare you try to bamboozle me!"
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