Woman shares easy way to find out if food delivery apps are catfishing customers

If you've never heard of a 'ghost kitchen' before - you're about to learn all about it.

You might think it has something to do with a restaurant being haunted, but it's actually all about somewhere having an online presence.

Some eateries will create an apparent 'virtual restaurant' so that it can operate out of an existing establishment's kitchen, or from a separate kitchen set-up away from a restaurant.

It's basically a place that only does takeout and doesn't boast a physical storefront or dining area.

While ghost kitchens are promoted to be smaller and local eateries, there are concerns that come chain restaurants are taking advantage and are posing (catfishing) as smaller firms so people think they're shopping small.

But fear not, as TikToker @sarahshooots has shared a hack to check if where you're ordering from is an actual restaurant, a so-called ghost kitchen or a larger chain pretending to be something else.

In a video shared to her page on Friday (November 17), Sarah explained: "My favorite thing to do is get on a delivery app and anywhere I haven’t seen before Googling the address and see what it really is and what they’re hiding."

TikTok/@sarahshooots

Showing what she could see on her UberEats app, Sarah finds the restaurant Burger Den at 5501 Leesburg Pike and upon searching the address, realises that it's actually a Denny's.

There was also anther restaurant called The Meltdown which, you guessed it, was Denny's moonlighting as a smaller company.

Another was a chicken wings place that Sarah could have ordered from, which turned out to be Chili's.

UNILAD have contacted Denny's and Chili's for comment.

Sarah also showed if the same address was registered to more than one virtual restaurant.

Confusing much?

Sarah's video its on its way to generating a huge four million views on TikTok, and people have taken to the comments section to share their thoughts.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

"My husband fell in love with a pizza place called Pasquallys. Ordered it all the time. We were eating Chuck E. Cheese pizza," one person shared.

"I refuse to order from ghost kitchens out of principle haha like how dare you try to bamboozle me!" said another.

"My ihop has an apparent ghost kitchen Mexican restaurant I’ve never heard of," shared a third.

While virtual kitchens may be a new term for some people, delivery apps like Uber Eats are aware of them and actually allow them as part of its services.

But earlier this year, it announced that Uber Eats was wanting to clamp down on the number of ghost kitchens on the app.

As of March 2023, there were a staggering 40,000 virtual restaurants on the app in the US.