MARYLAND, USA — Food Network reality tv star, Guy Fieri, has brought his delivery-only concept kitchen to Maryland.
“Welcome to Guy Fieri's Flavortown Kitchen where you can enjoy some of his signature dishes from the comfort of your own home”, according to the company's Facebook page.
Flavortown Kitchen is what is known as a "ghost kitchen." A relatively new concept, ghost kitchens are delivery-only pop-up restaurants that do not have physical locations. They rely on their website and food delivery apps like Ubereats and Grubhub to get orders and sell food to their customers.
Typically the business owner rents out a kitchen where they cook their food and delivery drivers pick it up. Earlier this year, youtuber MrBeast opened his own ghost restaurant to much frenzy across social media.
Fieri has been rolling out Flavortown Kitchen all across the country since January, including four in Maryland -- Gaithersburg, White Marsh, Timonium and Bel Air.
The menu only has 19 items and features things like S-M-Cheesesteak Egg Rolls, jalapeno pig poppers and a bacon mac-n-cheese burger. Entrée prices range from $9.99 to $14.99, however, not everyone thinks it’s worth the price.
“The food was cold, bland, and overpriced for a takeout kitchen," said one reviewer. Another reviewer had this to say about the mac and cheese, “I ordered today and paid a lot of money for dry pasta and tasteless egg rolls."
Not all reviews were about the taste of the food, most people complained about having to wait long hours for the delivery and getting it "ice cold," with items missing and sometimes raw.
“There was a huge bone in my chicken sandwich and it was raw in certain places," said one review.
While not all the reviews were negative, the positive ones were few and far between.
The question to ask now: Will Fieri address and fix these issues?