What is the future of virtual restaurants?

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Robbie Earl, the co-founder of Virtual Dining Concepts.

The company is now the largest operator of digital-only brands, which operate inside other restaurants, ghost kitchens and other facilities. They typically do not have a traditional storefront.

Virtual brands were all the rage during the pandemic but for various reasons they have slowed coming out of it. Some of them have been quite successful and others not so much.

We talk about how virtual brands can ensure the restaurants they work with produce quality food. We discuss whether they should open more brick-and-mortar locations. We ask about Virtual Dining Concepts’ relationship with MrBeast Burger, currently embroiled in litigation.

And we talk about what makes a good virtual brand partnership and whether anything has changed more recently.

This is a fascinating discussion about a fascinating topic so please check it out.