Executive Briefing
The audacity of MrBeast Burger
YouTube’s star creator launched a virtual burger chain with 300 delivery-only restaurants. It’s on fire, for now.
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, January 16, 2021 at 8:00 am
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, has built a massive following by imagining YouTube videos with comically over-the-top concepts — “I Put 1,000,000 Christmas Lights On A House,” “I Uber’d People And Let Them Keep The Car,” etc. — and delivering.
So when the 22-year-old launched a new food concept last month, it was appropriately ambitious in scope.
MrBeast Burger, a delivery-only fast-food burger joint — run as a “virtual” brand out of existing restaurant kitchens — debuted with around 300 locations across the US, not just in major markets like New York and Los Angeles, but also smaller cities and suburbs, including four in Donaldson’s home state of North Carolina.
“Yeah, we had to do it,” says Reed Duchscher, Donaldson’s manager and the founder of Night Media, a talent management agency for digital creators. “With anything MrBeast, he takes a simple concept and puts his spin on it — of what we think is possible,” he tells The New Consumer.
“Was 300 very ambitious? Yes. Did we know we were going to have quality-control issues with 300? Yes. But it’s more about: We needed to create a spectacle,” Duchscher says.
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