Crypto-Themed Eatery Doge Burger Opens in UAE

Digital currency, real hamburgers.

That’s the premise behind Dubai’s Doge Burger, a virtual restaurant attached to a cloud kitchen where diners can pay for their food with Dogecoin or other cryptocurrency and have it delivered to their doorstep.

Run by Rocket Kitchens, a chain of virtual restaurants, “Doge Burger is the chain’s first crypto-based hospitality concept that will enable consumers across the UAE to order and pay for their meal with digital currency,” the brand’s website said.

Besides dogecoin, diners can pay for their food with Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, CRO, XRP, USDT and Shiba.

According to Time Out Dubai, the chain hopes to become a part of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) increased use of cryptocurrency, with the founders funding their venture entirely from their investments in Dogecoin.

Doge Burger’s menu includes beef burger, chicken burger, a mushroom Swiss burger, a garden burger, various sides, and a hotdog…or rather, “hot doge.”

Read more: McDonald’s Trolled Dogecoiner Elon Musk With Grimacecoin; Crypto Liked It

The launch comes weeks after some other burger-related dogecoin news: At the end of January, Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that he would “eat a Happy Meal on TV” if McDonald’s accepted dogecoin, prompting the fast food giant to to respond “only if @tesla accepts grimacecoin.” That tweet was accompanied by a purple cartoon coin featuring Grimace, its purple blob-shaped character featured in McDonald’s ads.

That led people to create real grimacecoin cryptocurrencies built on Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Coin (BSC), Avalanche (AVAX), one of which spiked very briefly from $0.0007 to $2. That’s about 2,850x, or 285,000%.

Read more: Ghost Kitchens Make More Sense Abroad Than in the US, Says FAT Brands COO

PYMNTS looked at the growth of ghost kitchens earlier this month in a conversation with FAT Brands Chief Operating Officer Thayer Wiederhorn, who said the model had allowed his company to expand overseas.

“Internationally, the economics of ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants make more sense than they do in the U.S.,” said Wiederhorn. “Renting space for kitchens is less expensive, as are rates for delivery drivers, etc. Codes are also less sophisticated. Overall, new tech grows faster internationally and often can’t take hold in the U.S. because the economics don’t make sense.”