YouTuber James "MrBeast" Donaldson is entering a legal battle against partners involved with his burger brand, MrBeast Burger.
Reported by the Daily Mail, MrBeast filed a lawsuit this week against Virtual Dining Concepts, the company the YouTube star partnered with on MrBeast Burger. If you're unfamiliar, MrBeast Burger is a food delivery concept that operates out of "ghost kitchens", where customers order food online that is fulfilled by local partner restaurants (Like Red Robin, for example) and delivered in MrBeast Burger packaging.
The lawsuit alleges that MrBeast Burger has delivered "raw" and "inedible" food on numerous occasions. The lawsuit also says MrBeast Burger is often delivered late, in unbranded packaging, and/or without all of the ordered items. MrBeast's suit says this makes MrBeast Burger a "misleading, poor reflection of the MrBeast brand that provides low-quality products to customers".
Included in the lawsuit are screenshots from across social media of customers complaining about raw food delivered from MrBeast Burger. The suit also says MrBeast has not seen any of the money from this business venture: "To be clear, while this business has made millions of dollars, MrBeast has not received a dime," the lawsuit reads in part. MrBeast is seeking the right to terminate the MrBeast Burger business due to the alleged damages caused by Virtual Dining Concepts.
Today, Virtual Dining Concepts provided a statement to the Daily Mail, calling parts of the lawsuit "false, disparaging statements regarding the MrBeast Burger brand and VDC". The Florida-based company accused MrBeast of "bullying tactics to give up more of the company to him" and claims that the burger brand has increased the YouTuber's popularity, saying, "Mr. Donaldson’s notoriety has grown exponentially over the life of the MrBeast Burger brand, in part because of the MrBeast Burger brand itself."
MrBeast has over 170 million subscribers on YouTube. MrBeast Burger began operations in December 2020, and has hundreds of locations across the United States.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
