GrubHub is simple enough: pick one of Ithaca’s many local restaurants, pick your favorite items, and order. You might even feel glad to be giving back to so many small businesses. But, you’re not.
During the pandemic, when dining-in was shunned, many entrepreneurs opened delivery only restaurants. These virtual restaurants are commonly referred to as “ghost kitchens.” They have flooded the market with their listings on GrubHub, establishing a new niche in the restaurant industry.
Many ghost kitchens are entirely legitimate, delivery-only restaurants operating as independent entities. Unfortunately, a small number of Ithaca restaurants have made multiple fake ghost kitchens on GrubHub, deceiving customers into thinking they’re ordering from a new restaurant each time they order.
These fake ghost kitchens offer the same food as the proprietor restaurant, and operate from the same location, but with different names on their listings. If a certain fake restaurant does poorly, the mother restaurant can simply remove the listed restaurant and create a new listing. This ensures that the restaurant has nothing to lose from a few bad reviews. It also means they have no incentive to maintain a good reputation for any of the new restaurants listed. The deluge of fake restaurants makes it difficult for other, real restaurants to gain traction against the inflated competition.
The easiest way to check whether or not a restaurant is real is to check their listed address and see if it matches up with any other listings. The most common culprit is Luna, including their Collegetown (100 Dryden Road), delivery kitchen (310 Stewart Ave), and Commons locations (113 N Aurora St). GrubHubbers will observe that all of the ghost kitchens hosted by Luna list their locations as one of the previously mentioned addresses, and offer identical menus.
Looking at the GrubHub app, there is already a host of fake restaurants that act as ghost kitchens for Luna, including: Munchies, La Quesadilla, Mac Shack, Sol Cucina, Gyro King, Pass The Pasta, Nacho Mamas, Birdland Hot Chicken, and Wrapped.
These listings are only differentiable by the restaurants’ made-up names and menu options. However, all of their items are offered by the same kitchen. Some of the fake restaurant names come straight from the menu categories with their legitimate GrubHub listing.
These practices are not exclusive to just Luna’s, as some of the other “ghost” listings share the address of Jack’s Grill and Pronto Craft Pizza.
Kevin Sullivan, the restaurant baron of Ithaca, is the owner of Luna, Jack’s Grill, Pronto Craft Pizza, Purity Ice Cream, and more local Ithaca restaurants. If the GrubHub listings are any indication of their proliferation, his empire is growing.
While GrubHub supports licensed ghost kitchens, it does not support the fake listings. A 2015 Money article describing the ghost kitchen issue in NYC had the following quote from GrubHub:
At GrubHub, we take the accuracy of our restaurant listings seriously. We are partnering with New York’s Department of Consumer Affairs to address this issue and remove inaccuracies from our platforms.
Going forward, GrubHub will take additional steps to verify the details restaurants provide. Our new process includes more checks to validate the name and location of restaurants. Should any discrepancies arise, we will take immediate action to correct information or remove inaccurate listings of restaurants on our platforms. We’re also encouraging tips. If you spot any inaccuracy on our platforms, you can alert us atrestaurants@grubhub.com or restaurants@seamless.com.
While GrubHub has been aware of the issue for a while, it seems to have been ineffective at resolving it, given the situation in Ithaca.
Neither Sullivan nor GrubHub responded to the requests for comments regarding the situation.
