MrBeast Burger Taps In-Car Payments to Boost Convenience

As restaurants remove payment friction to drive digital sales, MrBeast Burger is leveraging in-car capabilities.

Tech provider Mavi.io, which creates in-car ordering and payment features, announced Tuesday (March 14) that the YouTuber-helmed virtual restaurant chain will be available for consumers to order from their connected vehicles.

“While MrBeast Burger has always prioritized a digital-first approach to customer service, the virtual nature of the restaurant can make it challenging to organically reach new customers,” Stephanie Sollers, CEO of the burger chain’s parent company Virtual Dining Concepts, said in a statement. “With OnMyWay Commerce, we now have the perfect digital billboard to market our MrBeast Burger brand to any customer, whether they’re loyal MrBeast fans or just hungry drivers looking for fast, delicious food on the go.”

MrBeast Burger is not the first restaurant chain to implement in-car ordering with Mavi.io. Fast-casual chain BurgerFi is doing the same. In an interview earlier this year with PYMNTS, Karl Goodhew, BurgerFi’s chief technology officer, spoke to the opportunity that the ordering channel creates to drive large-scale B2B sales.

“One of the big areas of opportunity here with in-car ordering is with fleets,” Goodhew said. “There’s a lot of people who drive around [for work]. They’re pharmacy reps, they’re sales reps, they’re mechanics or delivery drivers, and they have to eat. So, the idea is, [the] expense reports are taken care of automatically [for the employee].”

Fast-casual chain Panera Bread, which has more than 2,100 bakery-cafes in the U.S. and Canada, is also leveraging in-car ordering. In September, the company announced a partnership with Apple’s CarPlay that enables iPhone users who are members of its MyPanera loyalty program to order via the fast-casual brand’s app through their car’s dashboard.

Indeed, for restaurants to remain competitive in the crowded digital world, they must find ways to integrate purchasing opportunities into as many of consumers’ daily routines as possible. Many, for instance, have been integrating ordering into Google Maps to drive conversion in the process of consumers discovering restaurants.

Restaurant technology firm Toast, for instance, recently integrated Order With Google into its platform. Similarly, Grubhub added the ability for restaurants to display their websites built with Direct on their Google Search Business Profiles and to list those sites as the preferred online ordering option on Google platforms.

“What we’ve seen through our data — the reason we wanted to invest in this feature with Google  — is that merchants that promote their site through Google specifically, or through any mechanism that they have, like an existing website, receive upwards of 20 times more orders than those merchants who do not promote their site,” Kate Green, vice president, restaurant services and innovation at Grubhub, told PYMNTS in an interview.

These sorts of integrations enable restaurants to better reach the majority of diners that make restaurant purchases online. PYMNTS’ February study “The ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: Digitally Divided — Work, Health and the Income Gap,” which draws from surveys of over 2,700 consumers, finds that 51% engage with restaurants digitally.

Plus, it is not only the digital sphere. Restaurants are also seeking new sites to reach consumers in their day-to-day routines out and about in the world. For instance, some are finding placements at the grocery store, and it does not end there.

“I think you’re going to see the convenience factor” in how restaurants continue to grow,  Geoff Alexander, CEO of fast-casual chain Wow Bao, told PYMNTS in a recent interview, noting that might involve grocery or convenience stores or “coffee shops partnering with restaurants, bars partnering with restaurants.”

“The best part about it is, the food continues to get better and better at all these different places. I think that’s a true testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of the restaurant industry.”