FoodNeverComes in the News: The Times, TV Segments & a World Tour

In mid-2026, the "dopamine site" trend broke out of Korea and into the international press — and FoodNeverComes ended up on a lot of screens, front pages and TV segments. Here's the roundup, partly for posterity and partly because our mums didn't believe us.

They wrote about us by name

• The Times (UK) — "fake takeaway apps serve free dopamine hits," with the site itself on screen (watch their reel — our website, on The Times' own Instagram). Britain's paper of record, tracking an imaginary courier.
• La Vanguardia — one of Spain's biggest newspapers — ran "'It relieves my stress': buying food that will never arrive is in fashion," screenshots included.
• Cybernews looked at how dopamine sites connect to social media habits — FoodNeverComes as the example, screenshots of the site included.
• Malay Mail (also syndicated on Yahoo News) — "this viral app lets you order food that never arrives — and that's the whole point."
• Korea JoongAng Daily covered the craze from its birthplace with the site on screen — "these brain-hacking services let you buy absolutely nothing but leave you feeling richer."
• Spring News (Thailand) ran our screenshots for Thai readers — fitting, since our pad thai is one of the most-ordered dishes here.
• Chinese media wave: The Paper (澎湃新闻), NetEase (网易) and Sina Tech (新浪科技) all covered the fake-takeout site where "you'll never receive the goods" — our screenshots on all three, tens of millions of potential readers between them.
• Hospitality Career Profile profiled FoodNeverComes — "the app where you order food and nothing arrives."
• Curly Tales (India) explained the sites where you order food which never arrives.
• Collapse Life featured us — screenshots and all — in "Notes from the edge of civilization," which is honestly the most on-brand placement imaginable.
• International Business Times (UK) — a full, named feature, not a passing mention. It calls FoodNeverComes one of the best-known dopamine sites, walks through our exact flow (browse menus, read reviews, customise, track the courier), and runs three screenshots of our actual site, each credited "PHOTO: FOODNEVERCOMES."
• China Daily (Z Weekly, "Hungry for nothing") named the site directly and quoted our own homepage word-for-word: "It's window shopping for food — a calm, guilt-free little ritual for late-night cravings." When a national paper lifts your exact copy, you know the mention is the real thing.

The trend coverage that lit the fuse

The wider dopamine-site wave got the big-outlet treatment too: Fast Company asked readers whether they'd use a dopamine site, Psychology Today unpacked the emotional payoff of fake food orders, Open Magazine traced the craze going global, Deccan Herald asked why Gen Z turns to fake apps, and TechSpot covered sites "that satisfy cravings without spending a cent." We're happy to be the category's poster child either way.

And then television joined in

US TV news picked the story up too — with the site itself playing on screen. 6abc Action News (Philadelphia) ran a segment (their reel), YourCentralValley.com (CBS47/KSEE24, California) featured it (reel), and The Times posted a reel of their own. Watching a news anchor track an imaginary courier live on air remains the single funniest thing that has happened to this website.

What they got right

The core insight in almost every piece: the pleasure of ordering is mostly anticipation, and a fake order keeps the anticipation while deleting the bill. Several writers landed on the phrase "the ritual without the receipt," which we'd frame and hang on the wall if the site had walls.

One correction, gently

A few articles guessed at who built the site and got the details wrong (no, we're not a Seoul-based engineer named "Malhee" — flattering as the mystique is). For anything official, there's exactly one source: foodnevercomes.com and our about page. If you're a journalist, say hi — we answer fast and we're friendlier than our couriers.