Apparently, this sort of thing happened to Mr. Beast with regards to Mr. Beast Burger. Even though his agreements/contracts forbade the company making the virtual restaurant supplies from doing so, that company trademarked his likeness and brand in half a dozen foreign countries. He's currently suing them for damages, and for not paying him the agreed amount for his participation. (Apparently, they had paid him $0!)
He created the idea at the beginning of the pandemic. His thought process was that the Mr Beast brand would allow smaller stores to carry his product and incentivise people to buy take out from those shops and help during lockdowns.
I don't believe the contract between him and VDC is out outlining the contractual obligations, SLAs, trademark and marketing issues etc.
Not really anything super wrong with it, other than perhaps it would be harder to air grievances with them because there’s usually nowhere to go, and QC issues.
“Ghost Kitchens” have a more nefarious connotation than “delivery only” though because often it will be a single kitchen yet be advertised as many distinct restaurants. I saw one in one major city that was something like fifteen “different restaurants” operating from the same small space, which is sketchy.
But I think the person to whom you’re responding was relying more on the word “thousands” here. So given the connotation I think opening thousands of these things is pretty sketchy for some random YouTube personality with presumably no experience with restaurants to be opening simultaneously.
should be no different than any other franchisee. If you are worried about them ruining your reputation then you should QC them with secret shoppers, inspectors, etc.
(Don't read if you don't want spoilers. Exit Through the Gift Shop is phenomenal and should be watched without knowing about this guy. Watch it, then read the Wikipedia article for yet another surprise.)
