Ever order from one of the many restaurant chains on delivery apps like DoorDash or Uber Eats only to discover the address belongs to a completely different chain? You may have stumbled onto a virtual restaurant. Also called virtual brands or ghost restaurants, these delivery-focused concepts allow existing restaurants to sell food under additional names using the kitchens, employees, and often ingredients they already have.
The practice isn’t necessarily shady — some apps identify these listings as virtual brands, and many chains publicly acknowledge owning them. Still, the connection isn’t always obvious when you’re scrolling for dinner. From a grilled-cheese shop that’s really Denny’s to a chicken-tender joint operating inside Outback Steakhouse, here are 12 familiar restaurant chains you might encounter under very unfamiliar names.
Denny’s: The Burger Den, The Meltdown, and Banda Burrito
That trendy-looking burger restaurant you spotted online may actually be the same place where you order a Grand Slam. Denny’s currently operates three virtual restaurant concepts: The Burger Den, The Meltdown, and Banda Burrito, according to the company’s own 2026 materials.
The Burger Den focuses, unsurprisingly, on burgers and milkshakes, while The Meltdown specializes in loaded grilled sandwiches. Banda Burrito is the newer Mexican-inspired concept. The strategy lets Denny’s target delivery customers looking for specific foods instead of diners who deliberately search for the Denny’s name. And unlike plenty of pandemic-era virtual restaurants that disappeared, Denny’s is still explicitly promoting all three concepts in 2026.
Applebee’s: Cosmic Wings
Search a delivery app for wings and you may encounter a colorful restaurant called Cosmic Wings. Despite the outer-space branding, those wings can be coming straight out of an Applebee’s kitchen.
Applebee’s launched Cosmic Wings as an online-only concept and said in 2022 that the menu was being prepared in more than 1,575 Applebee’s kitchens. The brand remains listed on DoorDash in multiple markets, and recent customer reviews continue to point out the Applebee’s connection.
The menu revolves around traditional and boneless wings, chicken tenders, waffle fries, onion rings, and sauces. In other words, Applebee’s can effectively occupy another spot in your delivery-app search results without putting “Applebee’s” front and center.
Chili’s: It’s Just Wings
It’s Just Wings may have one of the most inadvertently accurate names in the virtual-restaurant business. It’s wings — but they’re being cooked in many of the same kitchens turning out Chili’s burgers, fajitas, and Triple Dippers.
Chili’s parent Brinker International launched It’s Just Wings in more than 1,000 Chili’s and Maggiano’s kitchens in 2020, initially as a DoorDash-focused virtual concept. And it hasn’t completely vanished with the pandemic: the brand was still being identified in 2026 as a delivery concept tied to Chili’s.
Interestingly, Chili’s eventually brought wings onto its regular restaurant menu as well. So depending on where and how you’re ordering, you could potentially be choosing between wings sold under Chili’s and wings made through its separately branded delivery operation.
IHOP: Thrilled Cheese and Super Mega Dilla
IHOP isn’t just pancakes anymore — at least not online. The breakfast chain created Thrilled Cheese and Super Mega Dilla, two delivery-oriented brands built around foods that its existing kitchens could make without much additional equipment.
Thrilled Cheese specializes in loaded grilled-cheese sandwiches, while Super Mega Dilla focuses on oversized quesadillas. When IHOP and virtual-brand company Nextbite announced the concepts, the companies said both would be available through Uber Eats and DoorDash and would make use of IHOP’s existing griddles and ingredients.
IHOP eventually expanded its virtual-brand strategy beyond the initial test, with executives saying the concepts helped generate sales during traditionally slower lunch, dinner, and late-night hours. Availability can vary considerably by market, however, so you may encounter one of these brands without seeing the other.
Buffalo Wild Wings: Wild Burger
You’d probably associate Buffalo Wild Wings with chicken before hamburgers, which helps explain Wild Burger. Instead of trying to convince delivery customers searching specifically for burgers to click on BWW, the chain created a separate burger-focused presence.
Current DoorDash listings identify Wild Burger by Buffalo Wild Wings as a virtual brand and offer everything from All-American cheeseburgers to bacon-and-Hatch-chile burgers and chicken sandwiches. Buffalo Wild Wings has also filed trademark paperwork specifically describing Wild Burger as providing ghost-kitchen and virtual-restaurant services.
At least this one gives you a sizable clue in the current branding: “by Buffalo Wild Wings.” But if you remember seeing simply “Wild Burger” while scrolling through delivery options, now you know whose kitchen was likely behind it.
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Red Robin: Chicken Sammy’s, The Wing Dept., and Fresh Set
Red Robin is unusually upfront about its alter egos. On its own FAQ page, the burger chain says it created three delivery-only virtual brands: Chicken Sammy’s, The Wing Dept., and Fresh Set.
Chicken Sammy’s centers on chicken sandwiches, The Wing Dept. goes after the wings crowd, and Fresh Set offers lighter options such as salads and wraps. The idea is essentially to let one Red Robin kitchen appeal to customers searching for several different types of food.
The strategy has caused some confusion over the years. A CBS investigation found a customer who ordered Chicken Sammy’s through DoorDash only to discover that the food had been prepared at her local Red Robin. Individual concepts may be unavailable in some markets, but Red Robin still identifies all three as its virtual brands.
Smokey Bones: The Wing Experience
If you order from The Wing Experience, the “experience” may include discovering that your food came from Smokey Bones.
Smokey Bones was actually ahead of much of the restaurant industry here, launching delivery-focused wing and burger concepts before virtual restaurants exploded during the pandemic. The Wing Experience uses Smokey Bones kitchens and revolves around traditional, boneless, and smoked wings with a long list of sauces and seasonings.
The concept still has current DoorDash listings, where it is explicitly described as “A Concept by Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill.” Depending on location, you may also see The Burger Experience and other concepts the chain has tested. It’s one restaurant kitchen doing a surprisingly convincing impression of several different businesses.
Outback Steakhouse: Tender Shack
Here’s one that continues to surprise delivery customers: Tender Shack, a restaurant devoted to chicken tenders and sandwiches, can actually be Outback Steakhouse.
Outback parent Bloomin’ Brands took the virtual concept nationwide after testing it in 2020, eventually operating Tender Shack through hundreds of its restaurants, primarily Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba’s Italian Grill locations.
And this isn’t merely a relic from lockdown. Current DoorDash pages still list Tender Shack as a virtual brand, with reviews from 2025 and 2026 describing orders arriving from Outback locations or in Outback packaging. The menu includes hand-breaded tenders, chicken sandwiches, seasoned fries, sauces, and desserts — no Bloomin’ Onion required.
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Perkins: Bakery By Perkins
This one’s less secretive than some of the others, considering Perkins is right there in the name. Still, Bakery By Perkins can appear on delivery apps as its own virtual restaurant rather than simply as another section of the Perkins Restaurant & Bakery menu.
Perkins launched the concept to focus specifically on pies, muffins, cookies, cakes, and other sweets, initially rolling it out through existing Perkins kitchens after a successful test.
It remains very much alive online: DoorDash currently shows Bakery By Perkins locations around the country offering whole pies, pie slices, Mammoth Muffins, cookies, cakes, biscuits, and breads. It’s a good illustration of why virtual restaurants aren’t always about hiding an identity. Sometimes they’re simply a way to make one part of a huge menu look like a specialty business.
TGI Fridays: Conviction Chicken and Wings
Conviction Chicken and Wings sounds like an independent fried-chicken joint, but in some markets the kitchen behind it is TGI Fridays.
Current DoorDash listings continue to show Conviction Chicken and Wings as a separate delivery restaurant serving wings, chicken fingers, sandwiches, fries, and sauces. Customers have reported discovering the TGI Fridays connection only after ordering.
It’s a particularly logical virtual concept for Fridays: A casual-dining restaurant already has fryers, chicken, sauces, fries, and other ingredients necessary to produce a convincing chicken-focused menu. Putting those same capabilities under a specialized name gives the kitchen another opportunity to surface when someone opens an app and searches “wings” instead of “TGI Fridays.”
Logan’s Roadhouse: Leo’s Italian Kitchen
This may be the entry with the biggest identity crisis. Leo’s Italian Kitchen — sometimes displayed on DoorDash as Leo’s Italian VB — can actually be operating from Logan’s Roadhouse.
Current DoorDash listings offer items including chicken pesto Alfredo, shrimp scampi, chicken Parmesan, mozzarella bread, and pasta. Multiple customers have reported that their Leo’s orders came from Logan’s, including reviews posted as recently as 2025.
It’s not Logan’s first experiment with alternative digital identities, either. Parent company SPB Hospitality has launched several virtual concepts through its restaurant kitchens, including Twisted Tenders and Ember Smoked BBQ. So if an unfamiliar Italian restaurant suddenly materializes online at the exact same address as your local Logan’s Roadhouse, you haven’t discovered a secret trattoria.
