Popular YouTuber MrBeast recently started a virtual chain of burger joints and I, being an old man who avoids non-gaming YouTube like the plague, had no idea. This is how I ended up eating some bland burgers over my Christmas vacation.
Sometimes when you are hungry, you want something besides the food in your house. It happens to all of us and over my holiday break, it happened to me. So my girlfriend and I, feeling lazy and adventurous, ordered some burgers and fries from a new place on UberEats called “MrBeast Burgers.”
I then found out, while waiting for it to arrive and googling the name of the place, that I had just ordered food from a virtual restaurant owned by a popular YouTuber. Then I found out that he had JUST started this thing a few days before I had ordered. At this point, I was nervous. My girlfriend and I began wondering about what we had just ordered and if we should place a pizza order as a backup.
For those, like myself, who might not know who MrBeast is, he’s a young man and successful YouTuber who does wildly expensive stunts, often with a charitable angle. A typical video of his will feature him giving away thousands of dollars to various people or groups. (Often this money isn’t his, but comes from big companies and sponsors looking to spread their brand to young people.)
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MrBeast Burger is yet another wild and expensive stunt, but this time fans and random idiots like me, can partake in the madness. And some of the profits are donated to charities too, which is nice. How it works, for those curious, is that professional kitchens located in various Brio Italian Grille and Buca di Beppo locations around the country get the orders, make the food, and then drivers bring it to your door.
And that’s how, about 25 minutes after I ordered the food, some burgers, and fries from a YouTuber’s burger joint arrived at more door.
So, you probably want to know how the food tasted. It wasn’t great.
The burger, which is supposed to be a smash burger, looked more like a burger you would get at any school lunchroom. It also was barely seasoned and tasted extremely plain. And, personally, when I think of a smash burger, I think of something with crunch, color, and flavor. Instead, this was soft and grey-ish. It’s like the burger you get at a bad party where some dude thinks he’s a grill master, but he’s just a dude who bought a big grill and cheap beef.
The fries on the other hand were better, as they were coated in a seasoning consisting of salt, garlic, spicy red pepper, sugar and lime. They could have been coated better, but a quick shake in their paper bags, plastered with MrBeast stickers, helped spread the flavor around to each crinkle cut fry.
It wasn’t the worst meal I’ve had, but I’m not excited to order from MrBeast again. Looking around online the reviews vary wildly, which isn’t surprising. This food is being prepared in random Italian restaurants around the country, most likely by folks who only had a few days or weeks of time to familiarize themselves with the MrBeast menu and ingredients. Maybe in a few weeks, as people get better at making the various items on the menu, things will improve.
For now, I’d say you can skip MrBeast Burgers and instead order from your local burger place or from a reliable chain. It’ll cost you about the same, and will probably be better.
Though, if you want to eat some food that comes from a YouTuber owned virtual restaurant, and you live near a Brio Italian Grille or Buca di Beppo, this is really your only option until Ryan’s World Bar and Grill opens up one day.