It's insane. I once found a restaurant that had ghost kitchen'd itself EIGHTEEN times:
https://i.imgur.com/7jwBlFG.png
Some of the name variations are pretty funny though.
https://i.imgur.com/7jwBlFG.png
Some of the name variations are pretty funny though.
These are the same fake names that the deli a block from me in Brooklyn NYC uses. Literally exactly the same.
That’s sort of fascinating. I’m realizing it just be some kind of software or vendor they’re all using to set up this ghost kitchen explosion.
I wonder if there’s a clever vendor out there shipping them some kind of device to keep track of all this stuff, complete with menus and an instruction guide or something.
Or, of course, the platforms themselves.
I just realized this screenshot is actually from GrubHub which I don't use anymore, so I'm not able to go back and check for further details.
Behold: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agrubhub.com+%22108+ja...
There are thousands of options which are barely undistinguishable from one another - like those cheap Chinese brands that flood many product categories on Amazon. You'll occasionally find a name that stands out, like the ones you've posted, along the lines of "Thunderfuck Porn Burgers". But they don't entice me to order, since whatever the brand values being transmitted are, they are not what I'm looking for in a restaurant.
The result is that you end up ordering from the same few oldies but goodies. Occasionally, once upon a moon, a friend will tell you about a new restaurant to expand your horizons. Some of these, while good, might not stand out in this sea of shit and end up closing, so you revert back to the oldies but goodies. And so it goes.
The corollary is that this a shit business.
Customer: "I would like a burger. What burger restaurants are delivering to me?"
App: "Here's a Mexican restaurant."
Customer: "I said, "HAMBURGER RESTAURANT", not Mexican"
App: "Don't be a wimp. You know you want tacos."
One restaurant which serves burgers, tacos and pizza. None of it particularly great but nice if you're feeling lazy. Problem is they split across three brands on Glovo for each food category even though it all comes from the same place.
If one of us feels like burger and the other fancies tacos you gotta pay two deliveries. That is unless you pay for a subscription of course. Someone mentioned elsewhere in this thread that Doordash officially endorses these "virtual restaurants". I wouldn't be surprised if they like the idea that it might push people to premium subscriptions to access free delivery so they get a diversity of food options.
As far as I can tell, the point of a delivery platform is to provide delivery services in a market where they traditionally didn't exist.
There's no claim they will improve the discovery experience. In fact, by obfuscating where you're actually ordering from-- making it less obvious "Oh, that's the place on Sixth where we all got food poisoning, let's not go back", they can further pollute it.
I could see saying "use the service, I want to order from Golden Lucky Dragon Palace, but can't be bothered to drive there myself", but saying "let's browse and hope to get lucky" is no better than opening the Yellow Pages to the restaurant section and selecting at random.
Ghost kitchen chain?
1. Ones that pretend to be a real brand name but serve out of an unrelated restaurant's kitchen
2. Ones that are 100% fake chains made up just for delivery apps that are used across the country
Before I order on apps I first google for the name to make sure they have a real physical location in my city and it's not a scam (yes, I believe all ghost kitchens are scams).