A virtual food delivery platform named FoodNeverComes has attracted a large number of visitors since its June launch. The site offers simulated menus and fake checkouts, tapping into a global trend of dopamine sites that mimic consumption rituals without actual spending.
Online shopping carts across the globe are filling up with items that consumers never actually purchase. According to recent reporting, this digital habit has spawned a growing internet genre known as dopamine sites. These platforms recreate the rituals of consumption without any of the spending, turning the act of browsing into a digital game.
Inside FoodNeverComes and the Rise of Dopamine Sites
FoodNeverComes was built by Purvansh Parmar and Anshul Sharma from Udaipur in India’s northern state of Rajasthan. Parmar and Sharma met on a computer science diploma course and later started NeuroX AI, which builds software and AI products and makes Instagram content. According to the platform’s creators, the site has attracted more visitors since its launch in June. The platform currently features 22 fake kitchens, 327 dishes, and 319 real recipes, complete with fake prices, a simulated checkout, and a fictional delivery experience.
You are hungry. Or you are not. It doesn’t matter. You open FoodNeverComes, pick from 22 cuisines and start scrolling. Butter chicken looks good. So does bibimbap. You add a few dishes, watch the total climb and hit checkout. A tracker says a rider is on the way. Then you get a dummy AI-generated call from inside the site. He is outside your building, he says, but cannot find your street or door. Except there was never any food in the first place. The order exists only on the screen. The slogan for the site reads: The food never comes – but the dopamine does.
Its creators also use the motto: Order the food. Skip the bill.
This phenomenon belongs to a broader international trend. The genre initially took off in South Korea and has since expanded worldwide, giving rise to a growing crop of sites—such as Dopamine Shop or Fakehaul—that mimic everything from food delivery and shopping to travel.
The Neuroscience of Shopping Chase
The creation of FoodNeverComes stemmed from the founders’ own online habits. Sharma frequently browsed electronics, fill an online basket, and abandon it. Parmar observed similar behavior from his mother, who would add things to the cart and say, I will order this later.
Parmar himself experienced excessive food delivery spending during a two-month project in Mumbai, where he says he was spending 5,000-10,000 rupees a week on food, sometimes ordering treats he did not necessarily need, such as Belgian waffles, ice cream, and once, a large jar of sour cream he barely wanted and gave away to friends. He believes that perhaps the real craving was not always for the food, but for the ritual of ordering it.
What begins as genuine hunger, the two argue, can become associated with the pleasure of ordering. Over time, boredom, anxiety or habit can trigger the urge even when the hunger has disappeared. As Parmar describes it: Sometimes you're not hungry at all. You're bored or busy, and then you realise that ordering food makes you feel good. You start associating the act of ordering with that dopamine hit. Eventually, it's not just the food you want.
Experts point to behavioral psychology and neuroscience to explain why virtual shopping carts provide satisfaction without a purchase. Ravi Dhar, director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights, calls this anticipatory utility
– the pleasure of looking forward to consumption. It is especially strong with things that capture the imagination – a new pair of shoes, a holiday, a restaurant meal – because anticipation becomes part of the experience. According to Dhar, anticipation can sometimes be more pleasurable than ownership: The thrill is in the chase.
Once the object is acquired and the tension resolved, psychological arousal falls.
Wanting Versus Liking in Digital Consumption
Neuroscience has a name for this gap between the chase and the catch, and it complicates a popular idea. Dopamine is not simply the brain’s pleasure chemical, whatever the internet’s talk of “dopamine hitsmight suggest. Kent Berridge, a University of Michigan neuroscientist who developed the theory of
wanting” and “liked”, provides further context.
Dr. Anna Lembke, a Stanford University addiction psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation, emphasizes that dopamine functions differently than popular culture suggests. In an interview, she stated that calling dopamine a chemical of pleasure is an oversimplification, noting that it acts instead as the molecule that drives people to get or do more.
Scale of Modern Delivery Rituals
The simulated delivery experience mirrors the massive scale of real-world consumer habits in the region. For comparison, Swiggy, a popular food delivery site in India, alone handled roughly 2.5m consumer orders a day in FY2025.
By abstracting the checkout process from actual financial transactions and food delivery, platforms like FoodNeverComes capitalize on the psychological loop of anticipation. The developers behind the site turned personal habits into a digital experience that reflects a widespread modern impulse: enjoying the ritual of consumption while bypassing the bill entirely.