RICHMOND, Va. -- Richmond chef Daquan Woodberry is hopeful the Absurd Bird becomes one of Richmond's most talked about chicken sandwiches. But you won't be able to sit down and order the over-the-top sandwich at a restaurant.
Absurd Bird is a virtual brand Woodberry and UK company Kbox Global are bringing to town.
Virtual brands are a food and restaurant trend, Woodberry said, accelerated by the pandemic.
To order an Absurd Bird, customers must use a delivery app like Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash, or Woodberry's own LoCo.
Once ordered, a local restaurant working with Woodberry and his team would then prepare the food for delivery.
"So if you go on any of the delivery apps and you're like, 'Hey I want some fried chicken sandwiches,'and you're scrolling down and you'll see Absurd Bird pop up. Well, you'll order and that food will be made at [Woodberry's] RVA Cafe and it'll be delivered to you and you may or may not know is coming from RVA Cafe," Woodberry said. "So the big thing here is a lot of bigger chains and a lot of big corporations are getting into this."
Woodberry and his team would partner with the restaurants, teach them how to make the virtual brands, market the food, and then share profits.
"I'm trying to help the smaller restaurant community have another source of income and another source of revenue," he said. He added they will also reach out to larger chains and companies, but he wanted to make sure local restaurants are included. "I'm looking for the smaller restaurants, the restaurants that could really use this. Yes, we're going to go to the to the corporations and people that — they want it because they can see how it can make them a little bit more money. But, I do want to focus myself on a lot of the different smaller restaurants that could need it."
Woodberry said when customers see the brands on the apps, it will also include the name of the restaurant that is making the food so that people will know who they are supporting.
Along with Absurd Bird, Woodberry said they plan to include four other brands in their launch including a naan flatbread pizza brand, a cookie brand, and a vegan version of Absurd Bird called Absurd Vird.
Woodberry said they plan to launch in a few restaurants after Thanksgiving, but hope to be in 50 restaurants around Virginia by January.
You can hear more about Daquan, the Absurd Bird, and his love-at-first-sight romance that start at iHop when the next "Eat It, Virginia!" podcast goes live on Monday.
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