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fredmau5 OP t1_j0lr2lj wrote

There is a bagel conspiracy going on in Jersey City and I think it goes all the way to the top. Pretty sure Steven Fullop is in bed with Big Bagel.

Seriously though, 3 listings at 332 central and 5 listings at 400 Newark.

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FelixTaran t1_j0lre72 wrote

I just googled 400 Newark and it’s literally the underpass. Are they both like, Law & Order addresses?

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jcburner2020 t1_j0ls1wg wrote

Called ghost kitchens. Pretty sure 331 Central is where Wonder Bagel is located.

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fredmau5 OP t1_j0lt1w7 wrote

Isn’t a ghost kitchen just when you serve food out of a non commercial space? This is literally just Wonderbagel making multiple listings under different names. It’s all just wonder bagel

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drinkingshampain t1_j0lt4bc wrote

The fact that jersey city is a bagel desert is so disappointing

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drinkingshampain t1_j0ltd2c wrote

No, this is Wonder Bagels and whatever the other place is spamming seamless and making multiple listings. Ghost kitchens are places that don’t have a brick and mortar you can go into to sit and eat and delivery only.

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jcburner2020 t1_j0ltq3r wrote

AFAIK ghost kitchens are still supposed to operate out of commercial spaces. That said, yeah, it's all Wonder Bagel. And it's not like the multiple listings have helped the ratings!

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The_Nomadic_Nerd t1_j0lxhqz wrote

Can someone explain to me why Wonder Bagel would make multiple listings of differently-named places on Seamless?

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Lowkeylowthreadcount t1_j0m04cu wrote

In the amount of time it took you to compile this, you could have driven to Teaneck hot bagel, gotten the best bagel of your life, and driven back.

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CatMad25 t1_j0m1j0f wrote

The more spaces they take up on seamless the more chance of someone ordering from them! It’s a little underhanded but technically above board. Lots of places in little India are also doing this.

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cpbalodis t1_j0m1nnl wrote

Saw a couple places listed that turned out to be Paradise deli.

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WarrenBuffetsDriver t1_j0m2o94 wrote

The phrase he's looking for is actually Virtual Brands.

>Virtual brands are restaurants available only on third-party delivery apps. Their creators use existing restaurant kitchens to whip up orders from a menu that was designed for off-premise customers. Pizza, chicken wings and burgers are popular options because they all travel well and don’t usually require extra equipment to make.

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NewLoseIt t1_j0m692q wrote

Also — not really this example, but in NYC a lot of hole-in-the-wall places post an “upscale” brand with higher places for delivery. I knew a place that was 30-40% cheaper for the same food if you used the less “upscale” brand option

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JeromePowellAdmirer t1_j0m7b8n wrote

I always search the address before ordering from one of these to find the true business

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trry t1_j0mcfca wrote

this wonder bagels is ehhh...

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MayorAnthonyWeiner t1_j0me6tl wrote

Don’t order from here. I ordered a plain bagel with cream cheese, lox, tomato, onion, and capers. What I got was a plain bagel with cream cheese and capers. Whoever thought that was a good idea to send out deserves to be in jail.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j0med4c wrote

This is actually pretty common even before apps.

Places sell food under a few names, same basic menu +/- a few items. Get a few phone numbers one for each brand.

Asian places have done it for a long time. One will be Chinese, another will be American Chinese, another is some kinda fusion. 99% same menu. Let’s them market and track marketing returns better.

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TooSmalley t1_j0mg8cz wrote

That’s what ghost kitchens are. There usually a rebranding of another company for delivery only services.

Pasqually's Pizza and Wings is Chuck E Cheese

the Melt Down and Burger Den is Dennys

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Mysterious-Change954 t1_j0mid99 wrote

I know places in Hoboken that started serving different types of food that varied from their official menu and listed themselves on UberEats / Grubhub under a totally different name. So you think you're ordering from a Mexican place but its really a just a deli. I dont know if that qualifies as a ghost kitchen or not. But still seems shady.

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Jahooodie t1_j0mj882 wrote

Yeah, alot of confusion around ghost kitchens VS this.

I like to think of it like a diffusion line, it just takes up more "shelf" space in the app or tries to entice people to order from someplace "new" that they would've never ordered from otherwise. I hate them.

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FParker82 t1_j0mnxcb wrote

“Bagel Conspiracy” would be a fun name for a new bagel shop.

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Ezl t1_j0narm0 wrote

Paradise Deli, the bodega on Newark off Coles, has 3 or 4 listings in Grub Hub - one for sandwiches, one saying the specialize in Philly Cheesesteaks, etc. Funny thing is, if you’ve ever seen the place it’s not somewhere you’d ever order food from, all their GH reviews are awful (spoiled food, terrible product, etc.) and yet they push their food really hard - (misspelled) menus items plastered all over the storefront, pushing different “specials” every day, etc. It all seems so bad that they can’t be making any money from it and yet they persist.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j0ncxvl wrote

Yea. My former coworkers used to collect menus from places they ordered/picked up. You could browse the stack for that chunk of midtown. At one point someone noticed several had the same address. Searching on Yelp showed it was just aliases for the same place… and same deal: all crappy reviews.

Once their reputation is blown they just start a new one. They keep the existing name to not loose existing customers. Cost is basically a print order for some menus to throw in bags and a Google voice number.

Maybe this is OCD, but if I order from some place new, I put it in Google maps and see what comes up. Is it a real place?

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Jape403 t1_j0nd6di wrote

The term for this is ‘virtual kitchen’ where an existing restaurant has multiple virtual concepts online. Unfortunately tons of restaurants do this

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gggrumpnbind t1_j0oaygu wrote

If you have a car and are familiar w Bayonne. Check out everything bagels. It's on 22nd st on the way towards Walmart. They got the right idea, at least by the fancies of a local jew-ish dood. Haven't tried their lox if they have but they have a better deal than ShopRite on day old dozens. Two bucks. At ShopRite it's 3.50

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106th t1_j0ob56i wrote

The only local (downtown) bagel I really trust at this point is Wonder Bagels on Jersey Ave and Columbus

Anyone have alt suggestions for GOOD "real" bagels in the same area (or Paulus Hook even)

Also, a new place called City Bagel is opening on Grove St. at some point "soon" -- hope their bagels are good

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Economy-Cupcake808 t1_j0obmdt wrote

This is something I wish the apps cracked down on. I used to deliver for some extra cash during the pandemic. It’s a big problem in NYC, often times I would walk into a deli or corner bodega and see they have like 6 or 7 iPads behind the counter all pretending to be a different restaurant on a delivery app. They put the restaurant on the app multiple times as a way to try and game the algorithm. They should really only permit one restaurant per address.

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oatmealparty t1_j0pz39c wrote

Wing places are notorious for this, loads of those wing shops are actually just pizzerias and fried chicken places running fake wing shops. Even domino's and pizza hut do it

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certifiedforgedcheck t1_j0q7273 wrote

Sprove Market has the best bagels in downtown. Idk where they source them from, but they are good, and there is never a line. Wonder Bagel is overrated.

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jgweiss t1_j0up7lv wrote

yes there are like 5 or 6 brands coming from Dark Side of the Moo, which is at that address. good spot, my wife wont order it since finding a hair in a salad.

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Ezl t1_j0vuuuw wrote

Huh!

Really good reviews, pics look promising, tiny menu so they have focus…

Thanks! I kinda sorta heard of them but the name seems so…generic and unrelated to much of anything, I guess…I never would have looked into them but they seem promising.

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