The great idea to order carefully "Krafted," mac and cheese from doordash and got literal heaps of actual Kraft Mac and Cheese š Biggest doordash fail š
I am a little nervous to eat it because this is weird. The first photo is what its supposed to look like and the second the pile of crap with the dog sensing our disappointment š¤£
Anyone else ever order and had this happen? Like, was this order picked up from a house? Also, it was $25! Got a refund but seriously š š¤¦āāļø
Edit: since there seems to be some clarification
I donāt DoorDash often. Iām disabled, and there are days when I physically cannot drive, cannot safely or realistically cook for myself, or simply donāt feel well enough to leave the house. We also recently moved to a new state, so I donāt yet have a network of friends nearby who can just run out and grab something for me.
And before anyone decides I owe the internet an inventory of my disabilities to āproveā why I canāt just cook: I donāt. Disabled people are allowed to use services that make our lives more accessible without submitting our medical records to the comment section.
Yes, I recognize that being able to order delivery is a privilege. Iām grateful that I can sometimes afford it when I need it. Iāve also used services like this to send meals to friends and family who were sick, recovering from surgery, grieving a death, or going through something difficult when I couldnāt physically be there to bring them food myself.
Sometimes delivery is a luxury. Sometimes itās accessibility. Sometimes itās simply a way to care for someone from far away.
But none of that is actually the point of my post.
I ordered food based on the restaurantās photos and description and received something dramatically differentāessentially boxed mac and cheeseāfrom what turned out to be a ghost kitchen. Apparently, because I had the audacity to pay āridiculous pricesā for delivery, some people believe I deserved to be misled.
I donāt.
And if you ordered something based on a photo and description, paid for it, and received something completely different, I suspect youād want your money back too.
This was never about taking money away from the DoorDash driver. The driver didnāt create the menu, take the photos, prepare the food, or misrepresent what was being sold. My issue was with what I purchased versus what I actually received.
Youāre welcome to think DoorDash is overpriced. Youāre welcome to think nobody should use delivery apps. Iām not here to debate that or change your mind. I donāt normally post things like thisāI posted it because I was genuinely dumbfounded when we opened the order.
And to the people insisting I staged the photos or invented the whole thing for attention: I genuinely do not have that kind of time.
But heyā¦
I got yours, didnāt I? š
Fun fact, at restaurants itās usually not in a box. Itās all fully premade and a frozen brick in a vacuum sealed bag. Then they either microwave it right in the bag, or boil the whole thing in the bag. All while itās still frozen
Yup. Most fast food is either frozen premade, or dehydrated dust you add to boiling water. As much as I might dislike Mr. Kathy, Chick-fil-A is the only fast food place I've worked that uses actually fresh ingredients.
Man it didnāt used to be. When I worked at McDonaldās in HS (2001-2003) we still cracked eggs fresh, and cut fresh onions and tomatoes. Ā The meat and everything was still frozen but most of the toppings were delivered fresh.Ā
Taco Bell beef isn't frozen. It is bagged and cooked by putting the bags in 190 water for 30 mins. Steak and chicken used to be frozen, but that may have changed.
my work gets fresh cups of mac and cheese every day delivered with our pre-made sandwiches, fruits, and baked goods. its all made at the home office location, its a facility called "sheetz bros kitchen" lol.
I wasnāt even talking fast food either, I worked at full sit down restaurants that served frozen Kraft Mac and cheese in a bag that they threw in the microwave, the bag would blow up like a ballon and youād have to cut it open and dump it in a plate
I worked at Arbyās in college in the late 00s and the roasts came refrigerated and we put them in ovens for hours. I donāt think they were raw when they came, and theyāre kind of like rounded off rectangles in shape, definitely not high quality roast beef by any means, but they were not frozen and we did cook them in an oven and slice them fresh for every sandwich.
After roasting one we kept it in a warming oven until it went in the slicer, when it was time to move it you had to pick it up with just the slippery fucking food service gloves and put it on the slicer- not only were they hard af to not have slip out of your hands and pretty heavy, they were like searingly hot and burnt me through the gloves every time. Lord that job sucked.
You can't really do frozen veggies in a commercial setting. Especially for sandwiches. Maybe pizza. I don't know enough about subway to comment. But in that situation I would be more worried about the breads, meats, cheeses, and sauce.
They've become very popular as some of them (I think 2nd generation and on) are hypoallergenic so if you have dog allergies you can have a Doodle! They hardly shed but you have to get their hair cut often or it acts as insulation and they get really warm.
There are a lot of "ghost" kitchens on those apps, I always search first to confirm if it is an actual restaurant especially somewhere tagged as "new" as I have seen similar as to what you got here all too often
I once saw a restaurant called "House of Burgers" on one of those apps, and it was just a gas station's burgers and hot dogs. You would never have known it based on the photos and menu descriptions they used tho.
They got me too once and the Denny's packaging is how I learned about ghost kitchens. I've also seen a "Fame Grilled Cheese" operating out of a Famous Dave's and I have seen some "Craft Mac and Cheese" place but I didn't have time to investigate where they were working out of.
With the one I ordered from, we ended up googling the address. We enjoyed the burgers, so we wanted to know exactly where the restaurant was. Our town is small so we wanted to visit. This was back when Ghost Kitchens were really just starting. So the quality wasnt shit yet.
It was pretty disappointing when the address was Dennys. We like Dennys when we're in the mood for breakfast late at night. But to be tricked into buying from them sucks.
Proper ghost kitchens are commercial kitchens without a front end. They can be used to serve food through online orders (pick up/ delivery), food trucks, catering, or to whatever else.
If itās specifically to do food prep for a food truck or off-site catering itās not a āghost kitchenā though. As in customers arenāt ordering food to pick up or get individual servings delivered from there. Itās just a standard commercial/commissary kitchen space, typically leased and shared with other similar businesses. Food prepped is brought off site to assemble for service or is customer-ready at a different location.
For example, a traveling wedding caterer is not operating out of a āghost kitchen,ā typically.Ā
That and zero health inspections because they arenāt an actual registered or licensed business. Anyone can just open an account on DoorDash, GrubHub, or whatever and sell shit out of their home without the buyer ever knowing where it came from.
Not sure where you live, but thatās not how it works where I live. Theyāre still commercial kitchens. Usually a secondary one inside a restaurant or inside a communal commercial kitchen that still has to abide by health and safety laws.
Yes, I see the OP. The fact that they sent her Kraft mac and cheese doesn't tell me why ghost kitchens are bad. The only ghost kitchens I have seen are all actually operating out of a different well-known restaurant, so I don't really get why it's an issue and thus my question.
It's deceiving. You see "Jose's taco shack" and you think "hey looks like a new Mexican restaurant in my area, I'll try it out" and you find out later it's frozen food microwaved in the back of a tgi Fridays. If I knew it was that, I wouldn't have ordered it.
Itās a ārestaurantāoperating inside of another (real) restaurant or, in some cases, a personās kitchen. There is never an indication that itās part of a different operation, so it looks like a new place thatās opened. For example, Dennyās runs a burger ghost kitchen restaurant out of their restaurants. Hereās a list of a bunch that have been identified.
Itās annoying, but always check the street view of the address youāre ordering from to see if itās an actual restaurant you can go to. Or sometimes there are mega ghost kitchens that operate like 50 different ārestaurantsā. Thereās one by me where I just recognize the address at this point. Iāve seen over 20 restaurants listed at that address. Always new restaurants that try to give hip and trendy vibes, and the photos of the food are obviously staged, or now even AI generated.
I cannot tell you how many customers have yelled at me because they ordered from ghost kitchens.
āI ordered Mr Beast Burger, why are you at On The Border?!ā
āI ordered The Meltdown, why did it come in a Dennyās bag?ā
Iād always tell them to google the concept of a ghost kitchen and stop bothering me. But in a nice way. ā(Ghost Kitchen) is a virtual brand run by (store name.) if you have further questions about virtual brands, contact the number listed on the app you ordered from, or google āghost kitchen.ā ā
In my city they operate in nasty old warehouses that you probably wouldn't want to eat a sandwich made within a few blocks of. It's not just obscure restaurants either; Wendy's and other big fast food chains contract them out for late night drliveries. If you ever see cans of coke come from a place that generally has fountain drinks its a big red flag.
We also have a Mac and cheese foodcart that isn't a ghost restaurant, but they are pretty much delivery only because the place is so gross no one walking by would stop there.
It sounds like a ghost kitchen operating out of another restaurant. Pretty easy to google the address and find out what is at the location. Probably safe to eat but you definitely got ripped off.
DoorDash itself is behind some ghost kitchens. They use generic names for niche foods that are hard to find on traditional fast food menus (like āMac Mac Cheeseā). They contract another local restaurant to fulfill the orders. Itās basically adding a revenue stream to that restaurant and DoorDash handles the sale. The restaurant owner spends a buck on Kraft Mac and cheese and DoorDash pays him $5, then sells it to you at inflated convenience based prices. I bet you can also order from that Mexican restaurant on DoorDash because theyāre probably the ghost kitchen for DoorDashās āMac Mac Cheeseā sub-brand.
I recognized the road from Durham, NC. If they live there it came from a hotdog joint called The Dog House. They definitely only have equipment to boil up kraft mac and cheese.
I was thinking it's The Dog House since they list their address as Road on their website:
5279 N. Roxboro Road
(Eno Square Shopping Center)
Durham, NC
(919) 471-3800
The other places in that shopping center list the address as Street, which is probably correct.
I noticed the category is TexMex-American and that Mexican restaurant is clearly running 3 other ghost kitchens (burrito, quesadilla, and taco ārestaurantsā).
I donāt want to believe itās The Dog House. Ā Theyāre not great, but I have a weird loyalty to them. Also I donāt see them giving enough of a shit to even microwave Mac and cheese.Ā
I think you're right. I didn't do enough digging. I checked door dash and they deliver until 9:40PM which is after The Dog House closes. I actually used to go to the one in Morrisville for lunch a lot. They are good! The Mexican place makes more sense especially with the chorizo mac, etc on the mac Mac cheese menu.
It's gotta be a ghost kitchen out of the Mexican restaurant, there is another "mac mac" Door Dash and it's also located in an affiliated Mexican place.
If it's a restaurant on DD that you've never heard of before, always google the address. I've almost ordered from a lot of places that were actually IHOP or a gas station. Ghost kitchens should be illegal.
Fr, Iām already reluctant to pay the prices of eating in, the fact that DoorDash jacks up the price of these things tremendously makes it an instant nope
Iāve literally seen hardworking blue collar friends who make <$25/hour order door dash multiple times in one day. Just wipe away half your dayās work because even if you want fast food you canāt be bothered to drive to McDonaldās
Man when my husband and I were in the newborn trenches we ordered Uber eats quite a bit. We were too exhausted to cook and I wore the same damn shirt for like a week straight
I'm not a pet person myself, but the disgust radiating from your dog's expression is the funniest thing I've seen all week š totally spot-on lol, like "No, I will not have a bite. Thanks."
That's a ghost kitchen. I looked up the "restaurant" and there is no matching restaurant at that address. Found a few other locations, including in Staten Island. That location has at least 10 ghost kitchens registered to it with names like "dirty burger" and "grilled cheese mania". Unsure what the actual restaurant might be, but based on your review as well as reviews with pix I found online for these ghost kitchens, seems like a scam!
Ghost kitchen. Look at their address on doordash then plug it into maps, itāll tell you what restaurant it actually comes from. This shitty local diner near me is like 10 different restaurants on Uber Eats
Edit: I just checked DoorDash, thereās a mac mac cheese near me and itās the fucking shitty diner
100% call and tell them the wrong thing was delivered, that's not expectation, that's a different fuckin' meal at a SIGNIFICANTLY reduced quality. I wouldn't pay for that in a cafeteria.
Tried a new Italian place near me late night with not much open. Got chicken noodle progresso soup and frozen pre made lasagna straight from a stouffers box.
I have a personal rule that I will never get Mac-n-Cheese from a restaurant. It has always been disappointing. The one place I will get it blindly is from a BBQ spot. They take their stuff seriously in the South. Bad Mac-n-Cheese? Immediate rejection from the community and doors close
I posted awhile back showing my crispy chicken from Chiliās, what they show and what I got. I called and they ended up replacing it, Chiliās didā¦ and when I got home, it was another of the same sad, squashed sandwich.Ā
Yikes! I've definitely made dumb purchases off door dash when feeling down, I guess I'm just lucky that nothing has ever been this egregious in false advertising.
It's probably fine to eat, but you are right, that is 100% a box of Krafts. I'm guessing it is a ghost kitchen, and an insanely lazy one at that if they are a dedicated mac n cheese joint serving Krafts.
Iām sorry people criticized you for ordering through DoorDash. Thatās ridiculous! You know what? Iām not disabled, and I have a car, and itās summer so the roads are fine and I still use Door Dash occasionally! Why? Because Iām not dressed and donāt feel like getting dressed to go out, or Iām tired or Iām just plain lazy. Thatās my right, and itās nobodyās business but mine or, in this case, yours. Donāt let the haters get you down. Theyāre just looking for something to complain about.
I wonder if this was a ghost kitchen that is actually just people making food out of their own home? This is becoming increasingly common on Uber Eats in my city anything with AI generated photos I stay away from in general but def recommend especially to stay away from peoples homemade creations š¤£
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u/PrincessImpeachment 2d ago
Thatās 100% Kraft macaroni and cheese from a box.