‘Dennys does the same thing’: Florida woman opens DoorDash app. Then she notices a bunch of suspicious restaurants with 3-star ratings

Food delivery services have started a curious custom. They list “ghost kitchens” with brick-and-mortar locations online, which can trick customers into ordering from them instead of other spots. One couple is going viral for asking some questions about a ghost kitchen they saw on DoorDash, as well as a few others on the app.

‘Pathetic thing to do, so sad'

In a recently uploaded video, Taylor Cole (@taylor_b_cole on TikTok) and her partner shared something unusual they noticed while looking at their DoorDash app.

“We were looking for something to eat for DoorDash, and we found some places that we've never heard before,” Cole said in her video. She held her camera up to show a DoorDash restaurant on her partner's phone screen called Off The Skewer. He chimed in, saying, “We're like a small area. Like, I know all the restaurants around me. Never heard of this place, but look right there: 3805 Gulf Breeze Parkway, 3.6 stars.”

Cole's partner then navigated to another listing on DoorDash. This time to a restaurant called Ridiculous Burger, which also listed its address as 3805 Gulf Breeze Parkway. The same held true for restaurants with names such as Libby's BBQ, Pasta Americana, Garden Bar, Wow Bao, MrBeast Burger, The Saucy Hen, and Pardon My Cheesesteak.

One might think that such a colorful variety of cuisines might demand different kitchens and different chefs. But they all appeared to operate out of one location.

“What is this one restaurant?” Cole's partner asked. “… They all get like around four stars, low reviews.”

But the real kicker came when he asked, “You guys wanna know what 3805 Gulf Breeze Parkway is?” He pulled up the address on Google Maps, which revealed it was a Ruby Tuesday.

“Eight or nine [restaurants]… so yeah, Ruby Tuesday's,” the couple said while speaking over one another. “Pathetic, pathetic thing to do. So sad.”

What is a ghost kitchen?

Cole and her partner seemed bemused by the sheer quantity of restaurants operating out of Ruby Tuesday. They also seemed to understand that they were looking at ghost kitchens. The caption of their video said, “We counted 10 restaurants that are actually just 1 ruby Tuesday.” They followed that by adding the hashtag “ghost kitchens.” But what does that term mean?

The term “ghost kitchen” was first coined in a 2015 NBC New York article investigating “restaurants [using] false identities on food delivery websites.” NBC New York “checked 100 of New York City's top customer-rated Seamless and GrubHub restaurants and found slightly more than 10 percent of the kitchens were ghosts, meaning they had names or addresses that failed to match any listing on the city's database of restaurant inspection grades.” Thus, the phrase “ghost kitchen” was born.

Ghost kitchens are actually only one of three “slightly different models in the delivery-only world,” according to DoorDash. The food delivery platform defined ghost kitchens as “professional food prep [facilities] without a storefront.” They typically have with distinct brands hosted in one kitchen working like “a coworking space, but for chefs.”

A virtual kitchen, on the other hand, “operates out of an existing restaurant but focuses on one or more delivery-only brands” to “reach new audiences.” As an example, DoorDash said “a pizza restaurant might also run a virtual burger brand from the same kitchen.”

Lastly, a cloud kitchen “is a broad term that can include ghost and virtual kitchens” and “refers to any model that prepares food exclusively for delivery or pickup.”

Are ghost kitchens legal?

These businesses have been closely investigated and legislated, but they've become a staple of the dining industry. They are legally operated, although there have been previous concerns about food safety in shared kitchen spaces.

DoorDash is also quite transparent about its partnerships with “delivery-only restaurants.” The delivery platform categorizes these partnerships as “kitchens built to … focus on making great food exclusively for takeout and delivery.” It touts its participating restaurants as having “lower overhead costs, faster launch times, and the flexibility to expand on [restaurant owner's] own terms.”

In an email to Buzz News, a representative from DoorDash said that “virtual brands are a well-established part of today's restaurant industry.”

“They allow existing restaurant operators to offer additional menu concepts from their existing kitchens, helping them reach more customers without the overhead costs of opening new brick-and-mortar locations,” the representative wrote. “On DoorDash, virtual brands are labeled as such in the app, so customers can see the relationship between a virtual brand and the restaurant operating it. We also maintain detailed Virtual Brand Quality Guidelines to uphold a high-quality experience for both consumers and our restaurant partners.”

Buzz News has also reached out to Cole via TikTok comment.

@taylor_b_cole We counted 10 restaurants that are actually just 1 ruby Tuesday #ghostkitchens #fyp ♬ Yacht Club – MusicBox