Editor’s note: It’s been a year since our last test of virtual restaurant brands (which included a YouTube burger from a strip club), so we decided to wade back in to see if delivery-only virtual brands have progressed in terms of packaging, quality and perceived value.
One of our four orders was placed by a DoorDash DashPass subscriber, while the other three used Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub at full freight. Compared to our last virtual brand test, our crew found significantly more virtual restaurants on the delivery apps, with DoorDash adding dedicated tags to help consumers identify virtual concepts.
As we later learned from two of the drivers, each of the distinct bowl concepts arrived from the same multi-brand facility in downtown Minneapolis.
The Thirty-Dollar $5 Burger
With all fees, this $9 lunch swelled to $30 for this non-Grubhub+ member.
A week after Uber Eats implemented a new policy to remove thousands of duplicate virtual brands from its platform, I was surprised I didn’t find more virtual brands when pulling up Grubhub.
Since it had been a while since my last Grubhub order, I chose to focus on this delivery provider for my own lunchtime test. The choices in range from my home in a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis were Pasqually’s and $5 Burger. Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings is the infamous virtual brand spun out of the Chuck E. Cheese franchise—a poster child for early-pandemic creativity. $5 Burger, meanwhile, was created by Famous Dave’s parent company, BBQ Holdings, as a delivery-only brand to capture lunchtime traffic.
I’ve been curious about the $5 Burger brand since its 2021 debut, and set out to determine if this was a better experience than my first brush with MrBeast Burger in those early days of the pandemic.
With three simple signature burgers and the ability to customize your own, three styles of French fries, soda, Red Bull and cookies, the concept is dead simple. I added ketchup, lettuce, tomato and cheddar cheese—and chose to make it a combo with a can of Pepsi.
This sandwich (and delivery) is the best, tastiest meal I’ve ever had from a virtual brand.
The Grubhub ordering experience was easy with excellent follow-up. Coming from a Famous Dave’s 15 miles away, I worried about the condition this burger and fries would arrive in. As it turns out, those concerns were unfounded. It arrived a few minutes early with a friendly driver, and everything was still hot, steamy and crispy inside the clamshell.
This was no accident or stroke of good luck, since the clamshell was wrapped in foil, and the burger inside was separately wrapped up. The fries were clearly, intentionally over-fried, so they were still crispy—an unexpected surprise.
Everything was tasty and I didn’t mind that a diet Pepsi arrived instead of the regular I ordered. This was the best virtual restaurant experience I’ve had to date. The price, on the other hand, was hard to stomach.
My burger came to a shade under $6, but with the $9.99 delivery fee, $2 small order fee, $1.50 service fee, $1.80 in sales tax and a $4.85 tip (and 89-cent round-it-up donation) brought the total to a clean $30. Taking out the donation and tip, that’s delivery inflation of approximately 300 percent. Were I a Grubhub+ member, paying $20 for a $6 burger would have been much less grating.
The burger and fries exceeded my expectations, but at that price, it’s hard to picture going with the notably named $5 Burger again, unless I get a fever where the only prescription is more cheeseburger. That seems unlikely, but it’s certainly not out of the question.
—Tom Kaiser
Saying F-U to Carbs
A paper bag wasn’t enough to help this meal retain its intended temperature.
During a busy work day, I ordered from F#ck Carbs on DoorDash. It’s a salad and healthy brand I’d never heard of, just under six miles away from our office and with a decent customer rating.
Finding a virtual brand was relatively easy as they list that information under the company name for delivery-only brands. They had quite a few to choose from, too! I looked up this downtown location, which appeared to be a former Indian restaurant repurposed into a ghost kitchen.
I ordered the Korean Hot Chicken Bowl for $18. With DashPass, it saved over $10 on delivery and service fees making the total with tip come in at $24.96. In fact, I have saved $485 in fees since having the DashPass.
F#ck Carbs jumped out at me, because it was a reasonably healthy sounding brand with cauliflower rice and the promise of some spice, and I love Korean fried chicken and wanted to try something new.
I’m a frequent delivery customer, and order 3-4 times per month whether at work or home. This delivery took just under 35 minutes from the time I placed the order to having it in hand.
My meal arrived in a compostable container with a plastic lid inside of a big brown paper bag. No insulation, and I was disappointed my food didn’t arrive warmer than it did. I thought the quality of the food was excellent on the whole, but the chicken could have been a little warmer.
I would 10/10 order from this brand again.
—Rachel Tegethoff
Aiming for the moon
A long delivery time impacted this meal’s temperature, but it still wasn’t bad.
For my test, I ordered from Moonbowls through Uber Eats. I had heard of the virtual brand and its healthy Korean bowls and salads and had wanted to give it a try. Being a vegetarian, it was nice to browse the menu and have more than a few options.
I ended up ordering the Sesame Surprise, a dish with sesame tofu sautéed with sesame sauce, corn, sweet potatoes, peppers, onions, kale, green onions and sesame seeds. While I intended to order the dish with just veggies, the app made me choose a protein. Although I don’t normally enjoy tofu, I gave it a shot.
My bowl was $16.50. With delivery fees and a 20-percent tip it came out to $26.02. I ended up conducting this test at home on a Sunday during peak delivery hours. The order took a little over an hour to receive for a 5.5-mile delivery, longer than I’m used to waiting.
The order came inside a stapled purple bag, labeled “Moonbowls.” Also attached was a LTO “free bowl” offer with a QR promo code. I was initially impressed with the tamper-resistant setup, the presentation and the compostable bowl my meal came in. However, the taste was subpar.
My bowl came completely cold, but nothing a quick microwave nuke couldn’t fix. Yet, aside from my personal feelings towards tofu, the veggies were a bit bland and the dish as a whole just didn’t have much flavor.
Here’s where the test gets interesting: in coming back to the office to discuss our experiences, I realized that my co-worker Rachel who had tried F#ck Carbs and my Moonbowls were from the same former Indian restaurant location. Both menus offered the exact same dishes, except each did have a few options unique to their own. For example, F#ck Carbs offers an orange chicken bowl and a pesto ranch salad, which are not offered under Moonbowls. Moonbowls also had additional offerings like sweet chicken kimchi and a few others.
I can now say I have first-hand experienced when a virtual restaurant will launch similar menus under different names. But this location certainly does put effort into making the menus a bit differentiated. I also noticed they offered Lulubowls from that location. Again, with the same offerings except a few unique Hawaiian dishes, as well.
While my experience was not as good as Rachel’s, perhaps ordering a different dish would’ve changed my mind. It’s possible the meals with meat pack much more flavor, and the long delivery time probably disrupted the quality. Overall, I may still use that free bowl offering and try a salad next time. It’s wise on their part to encourage repeat customers. Put me down as a “maybe.”
—Bernadette Heier
Hawaii, Minnesota
A DashPass membership took the financial sting out of these work lunches.
I’m normally a burger-and-fries kind of lunch guy, but I asked my coworker Alie if she wanted to join the delivery test—and we went in a different direction. She graciously agreed, and I asked her to choose the virtual restaurant. She picked Lulubowls here in Minneapolis.
Lulubowls is listed on DoorDash as Hawaiian-inspired bowls, with a tag denoting it as a virtual brand. I chose what they labeled the favorite, the Teriyaki Chicken Bowl. Alie ordered the more excitingly named Lulu’s Loco Moco, which included beef in a sweet ginger garlic sauce with a fried egg, peppers and onions, and some citrus-marinated kale.
The order actually arrived right within the estimated time window—maybe even a couple minutes early on the estimated 34-minute time—and the order was accurate.
Several team members commented on the very nice pink Lulubowls bag with white cloth handles, a nice presentation for delivery and a good first impression. The food inside was hot and traveled well inside the two bowls. Each order included some potato salad, which arrived warm due to being packaged alongside the hot bowls.
Both Alie and I thought the meals were very good, and agreed we’d order from Lulu again. The brand’s teriyaki marinade is especially delicious. Our grand total, with tax and a $7.50 tip, brought the total to $59.15.
If I had used DashPass, we would have saved $13.77 in fees, keeping the total bill within expectations. The portions could have been larger given a price that’s at the higher end of what I’d normally do for a work lunch.
— Jared Pfeifer
