Mr. Beast Burger Opens Surprise Location in Hudson Valley

A restaurant launched by YouTube sensation Mr. Beast opened in the Hudson Valley, causing mass hysteria in Dutchess County.

If you haven't heard of Mr. Beast, he's one of YouTube's biggest stars. With almost 54 million subscribers, the channel is a global phenomenon, earning views and likes from all corners of the globe.

In December, Mr. Beast and his friends launched their own restaurant called Mr. Beast Burger. The business is run out of "ghost kitchens," utilizing existing restaurants to create the menu items and get them delivered to customers. The concept launched in December to a limited number of markets throughout the United States.

Late last week, Hudson Valley fans of Mr. Beast were shocked to find out that a Mr. Beast Burger location had suddenly popped up in Dutchess County. By cross-referencing the listed street address it was quickly discovered that the restaurant was actually Joe's Dairy Bar and Grill in Hopewell Junction.

On Friday afternoon, the restaurant confirmed in a since-deleted Instagram post that they were, indeed, a ghost kitchen for Mr. Beast Burger. Joe's Dairy Bar and Grill is locally known for their ice cream and burgers, both of which recently won top honors in the Boris & Robyn Show's Battle of the Best, voted on by the listeners of 101.5 WPDH.

Being a huge fan of Mr. Beast (and Joe's Dairy Bar), my 9-year-old son went ballistic when he heard that Mr. Beast Burger was actually available in the Hudson Valley. I promised to buy him lunch on Saturday and the next morning he awoke yelling "It's Mr. Beast Day!" So just after Joe's Dairy Bar opened at 11:30am, I downloaded the Mr. Beast Burger app and placed our order for delivery. Pick-up isn't an option, but luckily we live just within the restaurant's delivery zone. Our bag of food was scheduled to arrive by 12:30, but didn't show up at our door until after 1pm. Doordash, which has partnered with Mr. Beast Burger, sent us an alert saying that the restaurant was "extremely busy."

I found out later that "busy" was an understatement.

By quarter after 12, the staff at Joe's Dairy Bar had to shut down orders from the Mr. Beast App after being completely overwhelmed. When word got out about the Mr. Beast Burger collaboration, the small kitchen was completely swamped with orders. The app was shut down just after noon, but there were already so many orders pending that Joe's Dairy Bar was still back-logged with Mr. Beast orders when I checked back in with them after 2pm.

According to Joe's Dairy Bar, they were extremely excited about the opportunity to partner with Mr. Beast but were taken off guard by the popularity of the YouTube sensation and quickly realized that the partnership was just not going to work out. Not only was their operation just too small to deal with the enormous number of orders, but the collaboration ultimately turned out to be unfair to their regular customers who were seeing their orders delayed.

I have my own customers that come first. It's a nice concept, but for a slow kitchen. Not for something like Joe's Dairy Bar and Grill.

If you were lucky enough to order from Mr. Beast Burger on Saturday, you know how disappointing this is. The food was INCREDIBLE. If you weren't able to get your order in; sadly, it appears that you're out of luck for now. The good news is that Joe's Dairy Bar is still very much open, and their award-winning burgers, fries and other menu items are all available to purchase.

It's also very possible that another local restaurant will become the next "ghost kitchen" for Mr. Beast Burger, so you may want to download the app and keep checking back. In the meantime, here are some photos of all of that deliciousness you're missing out on.