Restaurant owners praise YouTube sensation MrBeast for helping them survive the ... trends now
Good burger! DailyMail.com exclusively spoke with three restaurant owners in different areas of the US who signed on with MrBeast Burger during the pandemic and were floored at the immense and immediate success of the partnership
MrBeast (aka YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson) has quietly been supporting the restaurant industry as it recovers from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic through his virtual dining concept.
DailyMail.com exclusively spoke with three restaurant owners in different areas of the US who signed on with MrBeast Burger during the pandemic and were floored at the immense and immediate success of the partnership.
'We get orders all day long,' one restauranteur in North Dakota said of operating a MrBeast Burger. 'It still blows my mind.'
The virtual space, which launched in December 2020, is a delivery platform serving up MrBeast's signature menu of burgers and fries, and operates out of already existing restaurant kitchens in partnership with Virtual Dining Concepts.
'We were looking for ways to increase sales. So I took a shot in the dark and signed up with MrBeast,' Dale Zimmerman told DailyMail.com. 'I just thought it was a really cool name for a burger.'
Zimmerman owns and operates Peacock Alley, located in Bismarck, North Dakota, which is the oldest restaurant and bar in the state.
Through his MrBeast brand, Jimmy Donaldson, a 24-year-old philanthropist, has become one of the most popular YouTube and social media stars in the world with 139M YouTube subscribers.
Still, his target demo is much younger than the three business owners DailyMail.com spoke to and none of them had even heard of the digital prodigy who would end up helping their restaurants succeed.
Jonathan Donnelly, the owner of Lucky's Sandwich Co in Chicago, Illinois, was working virtual kitchens out of his business since before the pandemic. When stay at home orders shut down the country, he was operating 20 virtual kitchens at one time just to pay his staff and rent.
In neighboring Bowling Green, Ohio, Scott Daily and his wife purchased their restaurant, BG Burgers, 'hours' before the President would effectively shut down the entire country for COVID-19.
'We were looking for ways to increase sales. So I took a shot in the dark and signed up with MrBeast,' Dale Zimmerman told DailyMail.com. 'I just thought it was a really cool name for a burger.'
A year later Daily partnered with MrBeast and noticed an instantaneous difference. 'It was a godsend,' Daily said. 'It's crazy how much more business we got.
Coast to coast, the restaurant industry was turned upside down and, while it is tough to quantify, the National Restaurant Association estimated in 2021 that 90,000 eateries shut down because of coronavirus.
Enter MrBeast Burger. Donnelly described operating the virtual kitchen almost like operating a franchise. There is no dine-in so MrBeast fans order from a very simple menu via an app and off it goes for delivery,
