TikTok may be extremely popular now, but now one would have probably saw it coming that TikTok would open a new chain of delivery-only restaurants across the US! This new initiative will see the platform convert viral recipe videos from its app into themed menu items.
Partnering with Virtual Dining Concepts and Grubhub, TikTok’s new ‘Restaurant’ service will see its menu updated quarterly, and will deliver TikTok-branded foods right at your doorstep.
As TechCrunch reports:
“The menu at the restaurants will draw upon the most popular viral food posts on TikTok, which people can then have delivered to their door via Grubhub. TikTok plans to launch around 300 locations that will start delivering dishes in March, with plans to open more than 1,000 restaurants by the end of next year.”
Meal-Ready
TikTok’s new food service model is practically the same as the one that one of YouTube’s current top stars, Mr. Beast, used when launching his personal chain of delivery-only ‘Mr Beast Burgers’ restaurants, which, by now, has delivered more than a million burgers, along with expanding into new regions.
The process involves making use of staff and kitchens from other, existing restaurants to handle local orders, equating to lower overall overhead expenses by virtually eliminating the need to have physical stores, while simultaneously improving flexibility in terms of scaling and expansion.
As mentioned earlier, Virtual Dining Concepts was also involved in Mr Beast’s burger project, so the company is at least well-backed as far as operations go. On this note, TikTok will no doubt lean on the company’s expertise in order to really stretch its branding to totally new horizons. TikTok says that it will allocate half of all profits from food sales directly to the creators of the menu dishes.
What can we expect then from TikTok’s new Kitchen Menu?
Well, to at least get an idea, earlier this month, and as part of its overview of product trends for 2021, TikTok shared a listing that was made of the most popular food choices of the year, based on video engagement of course.
The Wrap
What could TikTok possibly gain by entering the food business game you ask?
TikTok isn’t really going into hard culinary services, let’s get that straightened out. ‘TikTok Kitchen’ is more a platform branding vehicle, helping it and it’s project partners better capitalize on rising food delivery trends. The project seems to also nicely align with its ongoing broader eCommerce plans, at least with regards to higher direct, in-app purchase activity.
The main idea here is to better establish key transactional behaviors; once you have those in place, then interest and optimal take-up of the option increases ever so slightly. In a way, it’s similar to promoting another form of in-stream shopping.
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