Why Is This Restaurant Selling Only One Dish On Zomato? Is That A Shady Biz? Conspiracy Theories Float Online

The appearance of certain eateries selling 'one dish' on Zomato food delivery has perplexed many internet users. According to a Reddit post, these restaurants in Chandigarh's Nayagaon region serve only one dish at exorbitant costs. 

Netizens speculate these restaurants may be involved in drug distribution

Some of these restaurants have no ratings, while others have received a lot of negative comments. The dish titles are similarly unusual, with items such as Naughty Strawberry, Blue Adventure, and Merry Berry on offer. People are suspecting that these restaurants could be involved in illegal activities like drug distribution and money laundering.

Netizens find Zomato listings confusing

"Came across some odd listings on Zomato in Chandigarh - so-called 'restaurants' that only offer a single dish, priced absurdly high. It's got me wondering: could these be fronts for money laundering or some other shady business?" read the post in the r/India subreddit.

"Has anyone else noticed similar patterns in other cities? Or does anyone have an idea what's really going on here? Would love to hear your thoughts!"

The poster, who first noticed this peculiar tendency, followed up with one of the restaurants, ordering the same meal but receiving no delivery. "I tried placing an order, but it got automatically cancelled after some time and the restaurant is now showing as closed," said. 

The person wrote, “What’s going on with Zomato in Chandigarh? Fake ‘restaurants’ offering just ONE dish at absurd prices, with non-existent addresses. Something really shady is cooking on Zomato." He further asked, “Anyone else noticed this?"

Unusual Zomato listings sparks speculations
The odd listings on Zomato have sparked speculations with many users suspecting that these restaurants could be involved in illegal activities like drug distribution.

Reacting to the post, a user wrote, "Those look like flavours of juice that you put into your vapes. Pricing also looks consistent." 

Another added, "True. I know of an exact such operation in another city, that essentially sells vape pens/cartridges. The price is almost the same, Rs 1000- Rs 1200 per item."

"Could it be a way to deliver drugs? With price this high, only a 'few' people will order. And them few will already be aware of what it contains, i.e., drugs. Just a thought," commented a user.

Another user mentioned that all the restaurants were in the same location, 'Nayagaon,' adding to the mystery.

Zomato Reacts To The News

"We have noticed social media conversations around single-dish restaurants listed on Zomato. We have identified all such restaurants that were potentially fraudulent and have delisted them from our platform. To solve this more comprehensively, we have also investigated all other restaurants which have a very limited menu on Zomato and might have listed prohibited items or worked around a way to list prohibited items," said Zomato.

"As per our policy, all restaurants listed on Zomato need to have a FSSAI license and we also actively block items such as alcohol, cigarettes/cigars/vapes from being listed on our platform. However, the restaurants highlighted were able to game our checks by using generic food names such as, ‘Naughty strawberry’, ‘Merry Berry’," the company added.

"We have further strengthened our fraud checks to proactively identify such cases to avoid similar incidents in the future," it said.