Gourmet Burger - (Ghost Kitchen - Inside of "Smart Kitchens") — Restaurant in Irvine

If you're looking for The Burger Joint, this is it—though you wouldn’t know it from the listing or the ordering process.

The only thing worse than the burger was figuring out how to get it.

The dry, grey meat tasted like it had been reheated multiple times, the cold cheese wasn’t melted, and the burger was just overall dry and clearly made with the cheapest ingredients.

Ordering through Uber Eats was a mess. The app initially quoted a 15-minute wait, then jumped to 40 after checkout. The provided address led us to a dark back alley lined with dumpsters, with no signage for The Burger Joint. Uber Eats instructed us to enter "Saks Food Corp," which didn’t exist. On the other side of the building, we found a different ghost kitchen (Smart Kitchen), but no mention of The Burger Joint. The empty lobby led to a dark, staff-only area with no clear instructions on what to do next. Each restaurant apparently has its own doorbell, but even if we had known that, we weren’t given the correct restaurant name to look for. There was no general call bell, and the ordering kiosk just went blank. Calling the number listed on Google Maps for The Burger Joint got no answer.

Desperate, I noticed a menu for Gourmet Burger and decided to try ringing that doorbell. A super nice guy eventually came out and confirmed I was in the right place—they had my order—even though neither the restaurant name nor the ghost kitchen name matched what I had ordered from.

To top it off, the in-person menu listed each burger at $7. So when Uber Eats advertised a "two-for-one" deal at $16, there was no deal at all—just a higher price and a forced order of two identical burgers.

My guess? Gourmet Burger received poor ratings and was rebranded as The Burger Joint to hide bad reviews. If you’re thinking of ordering, check both listings—but honestly, I wouldn’t...

I placed a pickup order on 1/10/25 and was told that one of my items was not sold at the restaurant even though I had already paid for it online. The person at the pickup counter told me to reach out to chownow to take the charge off and get my money back for it. I did what they advised and I was told the next day by chownow that my refund was denied by this restaurant as they claimed that they gave me each item when that was a lie. I’m not upset that I didn’t get my item as things like this happen, but I am more frustrated at how this was handled and that there was no effort in making this right. The food I did receive was not great and I will not be going back based on this...

I have ordered from them previously and the wait time was crazy. Now its night time i ordered from them through doordash and nothing came through for 2 hours so i came to pick it up myself. 0 way to contact anyone all calls went to voicemail the service is horrible. After me arriving they pushed the wait time another 40 minutes with NOBODY to ask for updates. Do not order or come to this place if you dont have all night/day to wait. They just have you wait in a sketchy back side next...