Mr. Beast just launched 300 restaurants virtually overnight and is now "dropshipping" burgers.

This isn’t the first time that the company behind this sensation has partnered with a celebrity influencer and created a viral virtual kitchen.

Time for a thread

Using his 8m+ followers on Twitter and tens of millions more across other platforms, @MrBeastYT launched his own restaurant chain via an app which ended up crashing from the overload in traffic…

How in the heck was Mr. Beast able to scale up to 300 restaurants overnight?

With the help of Virtual Dining Concepts, founded by Robert and Robbie Earl, a father-son team.

Robert is the former CEO of Hard Rock Cafe and current founder / chairman of Planet Hollywood, with decades of experience in the restaurant industry.

His son Robbie brings the new age vision to an outdated industry, developing influencer relationships and staying on tech trends.

VDC is a Franchise-as-a-Service for influencers and restaurants. They partner with celebrities and pair their ability to drive demand with the supply of restaurateurs with existing kitchens.

The orders are then generated and fulfilled through delivery apps like GrubHub, DoorDash, Postmates and UberEats.

The celebrity influencers are investing their brand and ability to do promotion, while VDC is creating the intellectual property of the menu, branding, and strategy.

Take the hip-hop artist, @Tyga for example…

Who partnered with VDC to launch “Tyga Bites” - oven-baked boneless chicken bites.

The partnership developed a menu that was authentic to Tyga’s brand, with chicken nuggets being his “favorite snack when he doesn’t want to eat something heavy before performing.”

VDC was able to build a branded menu around Tyga and standardize the process.

VDC then reaches out to restaurants with existing kitchens and offers the opportunity to create a “delivery only restaurant” brand at no cost.

The restaurateur can leverage their existing restaurant’s kitchen by fulfilling for the branded chain and increase their restaurant sales with a “turnkey, celebrity backed, nationally marketed restaurant brand.”

The restaurateur gets instant demand. VDC and the influencer get paid for leveraging their brand and system.

Besides Mr. Beast and Tyga, VDC has gone on to launch “Mariah Carey's Cookies,” “Mario’s Tortas Lopez,” and “Pauly D’s Italian Subs.”

Same deal. Different brands.

Celebrity brings the brand. Entrepreneur brings the IP. Restaurant fulfills the orders. The delivery app worker completes the orders.

This is the restaurant franchise model of the future, Franchise-as-a-Service.

A high-margin, low-risk way to connect influencer audiences to local entrepreneurs.

Just imagine if Travis Scott or J Balvin came out with a ghost kitchen concept…

Instead of partnering with McDonalds to create their own meals, they could instantly launch their own restaurants and own the brand IP that they have created, capitalizing on more of the value chain and owning equity in the upside.

Influencers create credibility. Credibility sells. Restaurants need credibility.

So what about quality control?

Real restaurant owners know how hard it is to remain consistent quality across just one location, let alone hundreds…

So how can VDC and the influencers ensure that a Mr. Beast Burger being made by a kitchen in Boston and another in Dallas are of the same quality and brand standard?

That’s a tough one.

SOP’s help and I have no doubt that VDC has a set of back-office operating procedures sent to each operator that they choose to allow fulfillment for their brand in a particular market.

It’s not a perfect process, but over time the quality will become more standardized and predictable. In the meantime, there will be undercooked chicken sandwiches and underwhelming cheeseburgers.

The market will eventually force individual operators to be responsible for their output through customer reviews and the account health of their delivery app.

The audiences of the influencers will first give the influencers some slack in the beginning and even conduct customer service in the comments, but eventually the quality of the product and experience will become apparent.

There will be some bad concepts with crappy food, but with a solid team behind the scenes, the experience will get better each time.

Virtual Dining Concepts seems to be leading the way.

The future of franchising restaurant brands and "dropshipping" food is here.

Which influencer do you think will build an empire with this Franchise-as-a-Service business model?