GREENVILLE, N.C. (WGHP) — He may be one of the biggest names out of Greenville, North Carolina, but that's not where YouTube star MrBeast decided to open his first brick-and-mortar restaurant.
Jimmy Donaldson, better known by his YouTube moniker MrBeast, started his channel in 2012. Today, his channel has more than 100 million followers. He has managed to make a career out of giving away massive amounts of cash. His acts of extreme and sometimes strange charity have turned him into a social media phenomenon.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent closure of restaurant dining rooms sent the demand for food delivery soaring, and that's when Donaldson launched his delivery-only fast food chain MrBeast Burger.
Until now, MrBeast Burger has had no physical location. Instead, the brand operated out of existing restaurant kitchens. Often referred to as "ghost restaurants" or "virtual restaurants," these businesses offer entrepreneurs a way to launch restaurant concepts without needing to furnish and staff a kitchen. In turn, the restaurants housing these virtual brands get a cut. The practice became a crucial lifeline for some restaurants that were struggling amid the pandemic-induced mass migration to delivery.
Donaldson partnered with Virtual Dining Concepts, the same company behind "Steve Harvey's Family Food" and "Guy Fieri's Flavortown Kitchen," to launch MrBeast Burger.
That brings us to Sunday. On Sept. 4, Donaldson officially opened the doors to his first physical location, located at the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
"Right now, my main focus is that everyone is happy," Donaldson told News12. "I just want them to be happy, have a good experience and we get through them quickly."
Donaldson was tweeting throughout Sunday as the crowd quickly took over the mall.
"We open our first Beast Burger in 10 minutes and there is 10,000+ people already in line. I feel pretty good about serving all you but anyone else coming idk maybe come tomorrow/later tonight haha," he wrote on Twitter.
He later added that the grand opening "broke the world record for most burgers sold in a day by a single restaurant." Guinness World Records replied, "Show us proof," so it's unclear if we're likely to see that record printed anytime soon.
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