Mr Beasts' Burger

On today’s Bullseye its time to talk about Jimmy Donaldson – you might not have ever heard of him but your kids know him as Mr. Beast who has over 105 million YouTube subscribers and earned $54 million in 2021. Mr Beast is one of the top 5 most popular searches on Google worldwide. He is fun, sincere, connected, and relatable. Donaldson is a new kind of influencer – he’s just 24 years old and actually started posting YouTube videos when he was 13. His focus – until now – has been on challenge and donation videos that give away large amounts of money – from thousands to a million dollars. His stunts are elaborate and expensive to produce – and has made him a super-star. And now he is in the burger biz. Really? Jimmy do you really want to enter the  highly competitive business that has one of the highest failure rates ever? You have no food cred and no experience! Which is why his instincts and insights just might be able to pull this off and change the way foodservice operates. He has partnered with Virtual Dining Concepts and the Mr Beast burger is available in over 1,700 locations. Sally’s kids demanded they order from the local Nashville outlet and besides coming late, being a hassle and the burger tasting – oh well, I’ll let Sally explain that one later. Mr Beast and Virtual have sold over 1 million of the burgers and the brand is now the most downloaded app on iTunes. Donaldson has shown that you don’t need a brick & mortar location to sell burgers – and the strategy is brilliant. I wish I would have thought of it. I can see it now – The SupermarketGuru burger – two all beef patties, special sauce, pepper jack cheese, onion, and a non-sesame seed bun! Oh well. But now he might be taking a dangerous step backwards. He has opened up his first brick and mortar location in the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford NJ. You know it as the Meadowlands. On opening day they broke the world’s record for the most burgers sold in a single day by a single restaurant and generated a crowd of 10,000 customers in just the first ten minutes of the store being opened. A success by any measure – however – a word of warning. Mr Beast – watch out. Running a restaurant is far different than creating those fabulous videos on YouTube. Your idea in partnering with other restaurants through out the nation is brilliant! Leave it there. OK Ill give you one – keep the American Dream Mall location – it can be a showcase. Much like Arnold Schwarzenegger who had a store next to his now closed restaurant Shatzi’s which sold Arnold’s paraphernalia. Use your restaurant to promote the Mr Beast brand – stop by a few times a year – even do a couple videos there on food – maybe a best burger competition among your fans. But please – don’t dilute your efforts – don’t lose your focus – be who you are and don’t get greedy. Remember Gino’s Hamburgers from the Baltimore Colts’ Gino Marchetti? Arthur Treachers Fish & Chips from the famed British actor and Merv Griffin side kick? Or Donald trump’s steaks.