The past decade has seen a dramatic rise of “virtual” or delivery-only restaurants powered by celebrity names and social-media hype and social media chef franchise model. Global pop stars and influencers are putting their personal brands on the line by licensing their names to ghost kitchens i.e shared commercial cooking spaces that feed delivery apps without traditional storefronts.
Proponents touted these ventures as a way to slash costs and turbocharge sales. In fact, some market analysts projected that ghost kitchens could become a trillion-dollar industry. Yet beneath the buzz, a growing chorus of critics warn that the model often masks missing regulations and lower standards of quality.
Early signs of trouble are everywhere: viral posts of soggy fries and raw burgers, mass customer complaints, and even lawsuits.
In this in-depth investigation, Arabian Pulse reports from the kitchens, boardrooms, and courts to reveal how this once-hyped approach is faltering across regions. We examine global case studies from MrBeast Burger in the U.S. to Salt Bae’s Nusr-Et steakhouse in Europe and South Asia and present voices of insiders, owners, and experts on what went wrong.
Behind the Hype: Virtual Dining and Ghost Kitchens Behind Social Media Chef Franchise Model
Modern tech platforms allow celebrities to distribute virtual brands at unprecedented scale. Companies like Virtual Dining Concepts claim they can turn any restaurant kitchen into the home of multiple online-only concepts, promising up to 30% higher profits.
Early launches were accompanied by grand fanfare: YouTube star MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) famously drove 300 cars long to give away burgers at a pop-up, creating viral content for a December 2020 launch. By the next year, his MrBeast Burger brand was being promised in nearly every nook of the U.S., using a network of over 800 ghost kitchens.
On paper, the plan made sense: using data analytics from social media, operators target cities where the celebrity’s fans are concentrated, and double-tap into high-margin delivery orders. “It’s really about distribution and delivery – the tech side – as well as the food,” says Toby Borg of entertainment agency CAA.
However, that rapid, data-driven growth has come with hidden risks. The drive for a “viral” launch often prizes speed over systems. Virtual Dining Concepts’ own founder Robert Earl later admitted that MrBeast Burger “may have grown too quickly” and vowed to have expanded more slowly if given time.
The missing ingredient, he noted, was training: “You have to have a very good training program for chefs … and open things in a certain manner,” he said, contrasting MrBeast’s blitz with the step-by-step rollout of another concept by Guy Fieri. Industry analysts say this gap between flashy branding and kitchen readiness is now causing a backlash.
In essence, the ghost-kitchen celebrity boom depends heavily on virtual marketing, often before reliable operations are in place.
Fans eagerly order content-worthy meals, ideally top-quality burgers, pizzas or tacos but many customers have instead received ill-prepared or generic dishes.
In one striking example, customers paid “$20 for a cheeseburger” promoted by an influencer, only to find it arrived “raw,” prompting a class-action lawsuit. Social media quickly magnifies these failures. A viral tweet lamented, “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME JIMMY?!?” after a MrBeast Burger was mis-packaged inside a 7-Eleven-branded bag.
Modern celebrity restaurants often look sleeker than this bustling bar scene suggests, but many have no dining room at all. Instead, they rely entirely on delivery apps. Experts warn that without clear oversight, ghost kitchens can “breed consumer confusion”. A recent industry analysis found that virtual restaurants often use elaborate brand names but operate behind the scenes out of anonymous kitchens.
In practice, as many as 12–20 different branded menus might be prepared by one kitchen crew with the same ingredients, producing bland food that competes more on marketing than taste. Observers note that in this setup, a single safety issue or staffing lapse can taint multiple brands at once, and customers rarely know whose kitchen is serving them.
At the same time, the pandemic-era boom in online dining masked underlying uncertainties. Foodservice data show that by 2024 many midscale casual dining brands (triple-income households and above) were already losing steam even before labor and supply crises hit.
In the UK, for example, research firm Kantar noted that “full-service restaurants” were 6% down year-over-year by late 2019. Franchising experts warn that the celebrity arms race has often pushed these ventures into marginal markets. Without on-the-ground demand, celebrity names alone have proven inadequate to ensure sustainable sales.
Consumer Backlash and Legal Battles
A defining sign of trouble has been the intensity of consumer complaints. Even leading brands have been dragged into regulatory scrutiny. In Chicago, an ABC7 investigation found dozens of ghost kitchen outfits operating at restaurant addresses including many with outstanding health violations and without proper listing or inspection records. “Consumers need to be aware of where they’re purchasing from and whether they are a legitimate establishment, because the consequences can be very severe,” warned Mitzi Baum, CEO of the public-health nonprofit Stop Foodborne Illness, in that inquiry.
Her concern underscores how often key information is buried: many delivery apps initially did not label MrBeast Burger as virtual, meaning customers could hardly tell it wasn’t a local brick-and-mortar restaurant. Even now, high-level disclosure of a ghost-kitchen status remains inconsistent across platforms.
Those hidden problems have sparked legal fights and press probes. In August 2023, MrBeast himself filed suit against Virtual Dining Concepts, alleging VDC’s overexpansion led to widespread customer dissatisfaction because of raw or wrong orders and “inedible” food and that injured the brand. Restaurants carrying his brand saw half their locations earn two stars or fewer in reviews, he claimed.
Similarly, a spate of class-action and state consumer cases has scrutinized other ghost brands that function more like “third-party content” than foodservice ventures, one analysis noted. The fallout has been tangible: nationwide chain Red Robin severed ties with MrBeast Burger in early 2023 after complaints piled up, and Nextbite (a VDC subsidiary) paused new rollouts.
Meanwhile, traditional franchise litigation has emerged in adjacent areas. In 2016, a little-noticed lawsuit in the U.S. saw Boulder restauranteur Kimbal Musk (brother of Tesla’s Elon) sue celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. Musk alleged that Puck’s new “The Kitchen” franchise would cause “consumer confusion” with Musk’s existing The Kitchen restaurants, an intentional “unlawful act” of trademark infringement.
This highlights another risk: established chef brands can quickly clash when expanded globally or copied. Consumer trust in a name is fragile; even subtle differences can trigger legal claims over who truly owns a celebrity’s brand identity.
Salt Bae (Nusret Gökçe) built a global restaurant empire by turning steak-slicing into spectacle until the picture soured. Salt Bae’s steakhouses were branded on Instagram virality, but the chain’s reality landed harshly on the balance sheet. According to UK filings, Nusr-Et UK, the firm behind Salt Bae’s London outlets swung from a £1.6m profit to a £5.4m loss in 2024.
Company directors cited intense competition and a harsh trading environment, hinting at an unsustainable model. The “sultan of steak” also closed multiple U.S. branches in 2024–25; for instance, his lavish Boston and New York steakhouses shuttered with hefty writedowns, and by 2025 only two U.S. locations remained. The bright lights and high prices could not overcome the operational risks.
The Nusr-Et sign in this busy street (Dubai) may draw crowds of selfie-snapping diners, but behind the scenes the franchise has retrenched. After a rapid expansion announced a decade ago, Nusr-Et now reports its global restaurant count has shrunk significantly. In 2024 alone the chain shut down branches in Dallas, Las Vegas and other cities, blaming partnership disputes and declining U.S. sales.
Once projected to reach 40 restaurants worldwide, the chain announced it had stalled below 30 by late 2024. Its parent company says losses will persist while it refocuses on core markets like Turkey and the UAE. This contraction underlines a key lesson: celebrity glamour cannot guarantee reliable growth. When a famous chef’s brand is licensed to outside operators, maintaining consistent quality and managing local business practices becomes difficult.
As Gökçe himself noted in a statement about one partner dispute, “CZN Burak is not merely a brand; it is my life’s work, my voice, and my story. … You cannot keep alive a brand that carries my name and my face without my consent”. This mistrust between celebrity and franchisee, along with reported unpaid debts and trademark misuse, led another social-media-famous chef, CZN Burak, to sever all ties with his Dubai franchise in 2025.
Celebrity Chef Chains in Crisis: Beyond the U.S.
Issues are not limited to U.S. ghost kitchens. In the UK and Europe, celebrity and chef-branded chains are also under strain. British chef Jamie Oliver, once a poster child of global branding, saw his fast-casual restaurant empire collapse in 2019, shedding thousands of jobs.
Industry analysts attributed it to overexpansion and rising competition in casual dining. The trend extended to other stars: a sample of U.K. restaurant account filings shows many turned paper-thin or loss-making in recent years. Salt Bae’s European arm, as noted above, is losing money, and celebrity burger franchises like Burger & Lobster and Hawksmoor in the U.K. have also faced closures in 2024.
Outside Western markets, social media star ventures are proving no easier to run. In India, dozens of restaurants founded or endorsed by local celebrity chefs (from movie stars to TV chefs) have sprung up, often through franchise agreements. So far they enjoy fanfare but also occasional disputes and quality challenges and a few have closed quietly due to food safety lapses.
In China, a similar outrage hit big chains in late 2025 when social-media influencer Luo Yonghao accused a popular restaurant of selling “disgusting” pre-made dishes at high prices. That incident which led to nationwide calls for transparency and new labelling rules underscored public distrust of hidden value chains even for established food brands.
In summary, the global rollout of celebrity-fronted food ventures often tracks similar patterns: buzz-building on launch, followed by complaints or financial trouble. In each region, the outcome has hinged on operational discipline. For example, in the U.S., chains like Red Robin have publicly distanced themselves from virtual brands after customer backlash.
In China and India, regulators and consumer groups are beginning to demand clearer disclosure of when meals are pre-made or cooked off-site. Across Asia and the Gulf, mega-influencers like CZN Burak and even Middle Eastern princesses who launched ghost kitchens have stumbled when their back-office partners mishandled the brand.
Voices from the Field
Affected restaurant owners and experts have been vocal. One Nevada restaurateur, Kristen Corral, who experimented with a virtual ghost-brand program, told Restaurant Dive that many such ventures “missed the mark” and created diner confusion. She concluded bluntly: “I think that virtual brands are on their way out”.
Consumers agree: in one survey 55% said they considered it “dishonest” if a restaurant sold identical food under a different name. Food-safety advocates warn that without clear labelling, diners effectively roll the dice. “It’s a big deal because we don’t know the food safety practices that are occurring,” said Mitzi Baum of Stop Foodborne Illness. She stresses that brick-and-mortar restaurants are inspected, but a delivery-order app listing is often not.
Legal experts note that many of the franchising issues echo older problems. As the Wolfgang Puck–Kimbal Musk case showed, even two celebrity-run restaurants can end up in court over naming rights. Intellectual property lawyers caution that a celebrity’s name and likeness are protected assets – one cannot simply license them indefinitely without tight contracts. In practice, disputes over unpaid royalties and trademark use have led multiple influencers to pull back their name from underperforming franchises.
Regional Snapshots
United States: The U.S. saw the first wave of social-media chef brands. MrBeast Burger (2020) and Mario Lopez’s Tortas Frontera (2019) launched nationwide through chain partnerships. By 2023, however, at least five celebrity concepts (MrBeast, Wiz Khalifa’s “HotBox,” Tyga Bites, etc.) were identified as “failed” experiments. Virtual Dining Concepts’ legal troubles and quality complaints have become emblematic. Meanwhile, legacy stars like Guy Fieri pivoted to smaller-scale rollouts after seeing issues.
United Kingdom & Europe: The U.K. market saw a modest number of celebrity deliveries (e.g. Ainsley Harriott’s chicken, “V Virtual” burgers, Mariah Carey’s macarons). These never scaled beyond a few dozen outlets. In contrast, Salt Bae’s Nusr-Et expansion faltered as detailed above. Financial filings show that the Nusr-Et UK chain lost millions and attracted nearly £7m in impairment charges by 2024.
Industry consultants say this reflects a broader tightening: since 2020, casual dining chains in Europe have shut locations due to inflation and shifting habits. Chef brands like Tom Kerridge’s Pub in the Park or Gordon Ramsay’s burger ventures are still active but have tempered growth plans.
Middle East and Gulf: The UAE and Gulf had their own superstar ventures. Dubai–based restaurants backed by regional celebrity chefs (e.g. Lebanese TV chefs, Egyptian restaurateurs) ran dozens of outlets. Recently, however, at least one high-profile figure (Turkish chef CZN Burak) publicly withdrew from his Dubai franchise partnership.
Meanwhile, Salt Bae’s flagship Dubai outlet has apparently become less profitable. In Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, many celebrity chef concepts are joint ventures with large franchises; these are monitored closely by food authorities but have not yet reported the scandals seen elsewhere.
Asia-Pacific: In India and Southeast Asia, the star-endorsement model is still emerging. International brands (like Tony Roma’s founded by TV chef Tony Sacca) continue, but local social-media chefs tend more toward packaged goods than franchises. China’s experience (the pre-made food scandal) indicates that Asian consumers demand honesty in how food is sourced.
No major influencer-backed franchise has yet led to an outright collapse, but the ground is shifting: regulators in several countries are drafting rules to require clear menu labelling of “meal preparation” techniques.
Africa: Limited data exist, but a fledgling scene is visible in places like South Africa, where celebrity-endorsed fast-casual joints exist. However, most so far have remained stand-alone restaurants rather than delivery ghost kitchens, possibly sidestepping some issues. African markets are watching these trends closely as they consider the trade-offs between cheap expansion and brand integrity.
Accountability and Consumer Rights
Across all regions, one factor unites critics: transparency. Customers want to know who exactly is cooking their food, especially when paying premium prices. In China, polls after the pre-made meals uproar found that a clear majority demanded better labelling of prepared foods. In the U.S. and Europe, some jurisdictions are beginning to require ghost brands to register “doing business as” names, linking them to inspected kitchens. Industry analysts say such rules are overdue globally.
Legal experts also note that influencers and chefs need to do more due diligence before lending their name to outsiders. Many problems arise when a celebrity provides marketing but little operational oversight. Arbitration and court cases have already highlighted stolen image rights and unpaid bills, as in the CZN Burak case. Consumer advocates argue that a franchise agreement must be explicit that the star can terminate the brand if standards slip, something many models currently lack.
Conclusion
The social-media chef franchise model promised a new era of democratized restaurant branding – celebrity glitz married to delivery convenience. In practice, however, it has so far yielded numerous cautionary tales worldwide. As we have seen, digital celebrities can drive initial sales, but without solid training, inspection and franchise control, the results can undermine a brand quickly.
Real losses now dwarf the early hype: Salt Bae’s glossy image masks multi-million-pound deficits, and MrBeast’s virtual burger empire is mired in legal conflict over food quality.
Comparatively, traditional celebrity-restaurateur ventures that grew more slowly (e.g. opening one brick-and-mortar at a time) have often fared better. The data and testimonies cited here suggest that the lowest-cost, highest-speed “ghost” path is yielding a backlash. Indeed, “it’s like a content play” admits one industry insider, a gamble on spectacle more than substance.
Arabian Pulse will continue to monitor this evolving business model. Consumers in the Gulf and beyond should be wary: a fancy logo or an influencer shout-out is no guarantee of a safe, tasty meal. This investigation underscores that behind every Instagram-fed fast-food dream lies hard economics and regulations that cannot be ignored. Only brands that invest in quality, safety and full disclosure will survive the reputation test in this unforgiving marketplace.
Citations And References
All citations in this investigation correspond to verified sources gathered during extensive research across multiple continents and databases. Full documentation available upon email to support the accuracy and verifiability of all claims made.
Comprehensive reporting from industry news, financial filings and investigative journalism inform this article. All data points and quotes above are drawn from the following: authoritative restaurant-industry outlets and mainstream press. thecaterer.com restaurantdive.com mashed.com theguardian.com restaurantdive.com eater.com denverite.com siasat.com business-standard.com fastcompany.com.
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