NEW YORK — YouTube superstar Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. MrBeast, has filed suit against the Orlando dining company behind MrBeast Burger, saying his brand has been damaged by the quality of the food being served.

According to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New York, Donaldson claimed that he came up with the MrBeast Burger brand during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to help local businesses. In 2020, he contracted with Orlando-based Virtual Dining Concepts to launch the brand as a virtual restaurant that would "partner with existing restaurants who would prepare those items and share in a significant portion of the revenue of their sales."

While there was an expectation that the quality of the food and service would be on par with the MrBeast brand standards, Donaldson claims in his lawsuit that "because Virtual Dining Concepts was more focused on rapidly expanding the business as a way to pitch the virtual restaurant model to other celebrities for its own benefit, it was not focused on controlling the quality of the MrBeast Burger customer experience and products."

"As a result, MrBeast Burger has been regarded as a misleading, poor reflection of the MrBeast brand that provides low-quality products to customers that are delivered late, in unbranded packaging, fail to include the ordered items, and in some instances, were inedible," the lawsuit alleges.

Donaldson points to complaints of the food being "disgusting" and "revolting," and includes a photo posted to Reddit that shows a customer's mostly raw hamburger with MrBeast Burger-branded packaging. One Yelp! review cited in the lawsuit was titled, "Wouldn't feed it to my Dog."

"One New York reviewer, echoing the sentiments of thousands, wrote that MrBeast Burger was 'the absolute worst burger I've ever eaten in my entire life! It was like eating spoonfuls of garlic powder. fries were soggy and ice cold. don't waste your money'," the lawsuit said.

After receiving "literally thousands of negative reviews," Donaldson said in his lawsuit that he contacted Virtual Dining Concepts "to fix these significant quality control problems as soon as he learned of them, but they refused and/or were incapable."

An email Donaldson's company received from a father of two said his MrBeast order arrived in plain, unbranded packaging and that it had actually come from a Winter Springs, Fla., 7-11 convenience store.

Donaldson's lawsuit points out that MrBeast is one of "the most recognizable and valuable brands in the world, with a YouTube channel with more than 172 million subscribers and a well-known penchant for philanthropic work. The filing says that via the MrBeast brand, Donaldson has used his platform to raise "tens of millions of dollars for charitable causes, donate over 6 million pounds of food through his nonprofit organization Beast Philanthropy, and help countless individuals and small businesses in need."

His lawsuit claims that while the MrBeast Burger business "has made millions, MrBeast has not received a dime."

The lawsuit goes on to allege that the quality shortfalls of the MrBeast Burger brand has damaged his company and philanthropic efforts as a whole.

"It is indisputable that, as the result of Virtual Dining Concepts' failure to correct the serious problems with the customer experience and food products, MrBeast's reputation and brand has, indeed, been materially and irreparably harmed," the suit said.

Donaldson is asking, among other things, for the court to allow him to terminate his agreement with Virtual Dining Concepts, issue an injunction preventing the company from using the MrBeast brand, award him his share of royalty payments and force VCD to account for all revenues and expenses of the MrBeast Burger business.

As of Wednesday, Virtual Dining Concepts had not filed a response to Donaldson's complaint with the court.

Read the full lawsuit below: