How to spot a ghost kitchen in Scotland: A consumer’s guide

Out of the twenty or so businesses using this model in our city, eight use it through Virtual Branding accounts. These are allowed by Deliveroo Partners Policies because their menu is “substantively different” from the one from its “parent” brand.

“Virtual Brands enable restaurant partners to expand their offer without the large investment required to open an additional venue, supporting local businesses to reach more consumers and providing additional choice for customers.”, a Deliveroo spokesperson comments.

However, at least thirteen other restaurants in Edinburgh operate their ghost businesses through Duplicate Accounts, which are explicitly forbidden by Deliveroo’s policy. These are not easy to find since they can either be an exact doppelganger of its parent brand or have a completely different name and look.

In this article, I will guide you through the defining characteristics of Duplicate Accounts and how they differ from Virtual Brands. The previous article, “The rising trend of Scotland's 'ghost kitchens’”, explored their need for regulation. Knowing their characteristics can help you be a more informed consumer in your hunger-driven Deliveroo scroll.

The easy part: address and phone number

As consumers, it is never wrong to be thorough with our food-delivery purchases. In third-party apps like Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats, you will find an information tab under a restaurant’s name with a Food Hygiene rating, allergen information, and an address.

In some cases, a Virtual Brand mentions the name of the parent restaurant. For instance, Bird Box at Ocean Terminal has “BirdBox@Frankie & Benny’s” in their address. This might be done to help delivery riders find the correct restaurant despite having a different name.

In the case of Duplicate Accounts, things become tricky. Deliveroo allows more than one restaurant to have the same address due to Virtual Branding, so Duplicate Accounts can easily blend in. However, some business owners do not know this and will make slight changes to their address to avoid a possible ban from the apps. In some cases, they use capital letters, remove the name of a neighbourhood, or add a range of addresses rather than just one house number.

If you suspect you’re about to order from a Duplicate Account, you can also look at the business phone number. Out of the thirteen found in Edinburgh, seven had the same phone number as their parent business.

Read more:

• The rising trend of Scotland's 'ghost kitchens'

• They'll soon run the kitchen at one of Glasgow's busiest bars - but how is the food?

• Michel Roux Jr: 'My biggest pet peeves as a chef? These two 'unforgivable' traits'

• I like this cafe. A lot. It's honest cooking from a mom and pop team

• If only this restaurant was as good as its publicity blurbs claim

• I had to pay upfront for meal when I booked. Bloody cheek, I thought, but I was wrong

• Glasgow is home to UK's best burger. Is it all it is cracked up to be?

• I discovered perfect pizzas in the most unusual of locations

The fun part: Quirky names and logos

If you regularly order food, you have probably laughed at some quirky restaurant names before. Some examples are Pizza Amore at The Chanter, or Eugreeka! and Wingology from The Fat Pizza. These names are distinctive of Virtual Brands, which usually have a more cohesive image with appetising pictures for every item and wrappings with their brand’s logo.

In Edinburgh, the names of Duplicate Accounts fall into two categories. Nine accounts have a completely different name than the parent restaurant, while the remaining four tweak the name of the parent restaurant slightly. One example is Holyrood Restaurant in Old Town, whose Duplicate Account is “Holyrood Twenty - Old Town and Canongate”.

The social part: reviews and popularity

Reviews matter, and not only when it comes to ratings. Parent restaurants’ accounts usually have more reviews than their Duplicate Accounts, but not necessarily a better rating. Accounts with more than 500 ratings are always the most trustworthy, and if there are no reviews or very few, it could be a duplicate.

Lastly, we also must pay attention to our surroundings and the physical world, rather than the digital. Have you seen this restaurant in the street it claims to be? Have you heard a friend or a coworker recommend it? Have you ordered from there before, and if so, what was the packaging like? These are all useful when choosing any restaurant but become crucial for identifying ghost kitchens.

Is Deliveroo chasing Duplicates?

Deliveroo shared for this article that they are actively working on tackling Duplicate Accounts:

“We do not allow Duplicate Accounts on our platform, and conduct monthly sweeps to detect and remove any duplications. We are aware that a small number of Duplicate Accounts are managing to bypass these sweeps, so are currently developing further processes to prevent this which will launch later this year.”

“All brands operating on our platform, must ensure imagery and menu information is accurate and descriptive.”

While this is good news for Edinburgh, the regulation of ghost kitchens by the UK’s Food Standard Agency is still a work in progress.