Financing

A look at the quality and value of virtual kitchens

A Deeper Dive: Restaurant Business editors use the podcast episode to discuss their taste test of various virtual brands, and whether they’d order from them again.

What are consumers getting when they order from a virtual kitchen?

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features our editors speaking of their recent taste test of a handful of virtual brands.

The project was spearheaded by Senior Technology Editor Joe Guszkowski, who wrote about the experiences in a piece last week. We are joined by Editor-at-Large Peter Romeo and Senior Independents Editor Heather Lalley.

The brands we tried were MrBeast Burger, Man Vs. Fries, Grilled Cheese Society and Another Wing by DJ Khaled.

We rated them on delivery quality, food quality and appearance and overall value. You should check out the piece, which ran last week.

The editors discuss the results of their orders, including which brands they prefer, which brands they disliked, and their overall value. We discuss how much this says about delivery charges, and whether we would order this in the future.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on Spotify.

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Financing

Despite their complaints, customers keep flocking to Chipotle

The Bottom Line: The chain continued to be a juggernaut last quarter, with strong sales and traffic growth, despite frequent social media complaints about shrinkflation or other challenges.

Operations

Hitting resistance elsewhere, ghost kitchens and virtual concepts find a happy home in family dining

Reality Check: Old-guard chains are finding the alternative operations to be persistently effective side hustles.

Financing

The Tijuana Flats bankruptcy highlights the dangers of menu miscues

The Bottom Line: The fast-casual chain’s problems following new menu debuts in 2021 and 2022 show that adding new items isn’t always the right idea.

Trending

More from our partners