A single store in Melbourne’s outer suburbs serves food for 17 different restaurants that are published in delivery applications.
An Eagle’s Eye Customer revealed in a Reddit publication that the “Burgur” enclosure of Berwick’s main drag shared the same address as more than a dozen other offers at Uber Eats.
Some of these delivery stores only have names that look similar to established brands such as “Shack Shake”, “In Out Buns”, “Mad Taco” and “Mad Mexican”.
Other virtual restaurants have titles that some Reddit users suggested that they could have been created by AI, such as “chicken”, “Mr. Chips Man” and simply “Burrito”.
Many of the companies sell similar rates: burgers variations, Mexican, ice cream, shakes and chips.
One of the locals was mistaken for where the food came from after trying to attend one of the business, Melt Shop, just to find that the address took them to Burgur.
“We found a great shop through Uber, but we wanted to check the store, but he says the collection is not available,” he wrote on a Berwick community Facebook page.
“Does anyone know where the merger shop is?
“It’s called in Uber 44 High Street Berwick Shop 10, but we went -it was a Burgur shop and it does not have (does not have) what is on the menu compared to the Uber Melt store.”
When News.com.au called on the store on Thursday, a staff confirmed that the store had a kitchen and “many names” in Uber.
News.com.au understands that all companies that operate outside the High St room are legitimate and conforms.
Uber, in a statement, said that “it provides the restaurants of all Australia the flexibility to choose how they are associated with us, while still fulfilling our standard community requirements and guidelines.”
“A virtual restaurant allows chefs and business owners to use the space they already have in their kitchens, to try to cook new kitchens and reach new customers with brands only online,” a spokesman said.
Virtual restaurants, sometimes called ghost kitchens, have become common on online food delivery websites and some physical restaurants go beyond.
Dr. Andy Lee, from the Business School of the University of Queensland, said that the types of ghost cuisines varied: some were rented and others were shared by several companies.
He said that confidence in online companies was overlooking during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to a growth of the restaurants only delivery.
The model offers the possibility of setting up a business with less staff and adjustment costs, as well as the possibility of completely changing a menu or brand easily, said Dr. Lee.
“If they start their business with Italian food, but the demand is not so good, then they can change -let’s say, let’s say, French cuisine if they can do it,” he said.
“But in the traditional restaurant, they cannot easily do it because they have to change their interior and they have to make the different marketing strategy.”
Dr. Lee said that a kitchen that operates with various online names could also create an “illusion” that a client chose between different shops.
“We just believe that the food we get from a shop” will be different from the “B” store, he said.
“We just don’t know. There’s so much anonymity behind the plate.”
A Reddit user spoke about a separate operation in the Mulgrave suburb, saying that they had stopped using Uber dining rooms after “stinging” several times.
“He ordered one of the worst burgers of my life. I will not buy again,” I thought, “they said.
“Ordered by what I thought was a different burger board a week or so. Then he saw how the driver collects from the same place.”
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