Top YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson filled a shopping centre in the U.S. with thousands of fans on Sunday at the opening of his first burger restaurant.
Donaldson is one of the most popular people on video-sharing platform YouTube, with more than 100 million subscribers.
He used that fame to open MrBeast Burger in 2020, which delivers from more than 1,000 locations worldwide.
And now he has a physical restaurant, at which fans queued for hours for a burger and a chance to meet him.
The restaurant opened in the American Dream mall, in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
After it had been open for two hours, Donaldson shared a video of the number of people waiting in line – which he estimated at more than 10,000.
Donaldson is part of a growing trend of stars who made their names online moving into the food industry but ignoring the traditional model of brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Celebrities have begun instead linking their names to food-delivery services operating out of the kitchens of other businesses.
For example, in the beginning of 2022, fans in London could have a MrBeast Burger delivered to them from Shoreditch, in the east of the city – where it was made in the kitchen of a different burger joint, Dirty Bones.
The options are more plentiful for those in the U.S., where diners can order macaroni and cheese bearing the name of TikTok content creator Larray, esports team FaZe Clan is selling sub-style sandwiches, and even Mariah Carey is getting in on the action with her own cookie brand.
This is not the first time Donaldson has forayed into food, but it may be the most profitable.
In January, he launched his own chocolate company, with a mass giveaway campaign.
And in April, he claimed the business had given away $1.3 million in chocolate.
In 2021, he launched a philanthropy-themed YouTube channel, which has more than 10 million subscribers.
And he now has a licensed charity that functions as a food bank to feed communities across the U.S.
The day after MrBeast Burger’s grand opening, Donaldson claimed he had broken the world record for the most burgers sold in a single day.
But he may have to hold off on calling himself the burger king, because Guinness World Records has taken to Twitter to ask for proof.
