In the food world, businesses can go from obscurity to ubiquity almost overnight. Take Wonder food hall, a chain that advertises meals by celebrity chefs that customers can order from a centralized spot and have delivered straight to their doorstep. After opening its first brick and mortar shop in New York City in 2023, its website now lists more than 100 locations, including around 30 coming soon.

One recent arrival: Canton Crossing in Southeast Baltimore, where it sits between Samos Greek Island Grill and Mission BBQ — two places where you might rather go instead.

The promise of Wonder is intriguing. You can dine on braised pork cheeks by José Andrés and filet mignon from Bobby Flay in minutes, all while wearing your favorite sweatpants.

I was immediately interested — and skeptical. While the concept calls itself a food hall, it’s a far cry from Lexington Market or R. House. Meals are prepared in a central commissary kitchen and ordered either online or from a self-service kiosk. You can eat inside a small dine-in area, which has the spartan vibe and aroma of an Apple Genius Bar.

The Baltimore location doesn’t offer delivery yet, but two visits to pick up food mostly confirmed my cynicism while suggesting there might be a dish or two on the menu worth exploring.

The worst offenders included a flavorless and cardboard-stiff pizza from Wonder’s own chief culinary officer Al Lanza, the New York chef and name behind “Alanza pizza.” His truffle and mushroom pizza ($11.45) makes a frozen pie from Trader Joe’s seem gourmet in comparison. The frosting on a two-pack of Magnolia cupcakes ($8.75) had the density of drying cement. An endive and goat cheese salad ($11.95) from Andrés’ Jota featured browning, bland lettuce. After a bite or two, I was ready to chuck the whole thing in the comically small trash can near the door.

What’s confusing about Wonder is how easy it is to find much, much better versions of most of the dishes they sell. Why settle for celeb chef Marcus Samuelsson’s wilted and under-seasoned chicken sandwich when you could go to Ekiben for the spicy Neighborhood Bird? Why bother with a sad, mostly rice-filled burrito from Wonder staple Limesalt when you could just swing by Taco Town? Honestly, even Chick-fil-A and Chipotle seem like better options when it comes to bang for your buck.

Sure, you could spend $18.95 for a lamb shawarma that supposedly comes from D.C.’s trendy Maydan but looks like something you found in the backseat of your car. Or for half that amount, you could get the lamb wrap from Samos. As one of my coworkers quipped, while watching me unbox my lackluster haul in The Banner newsroom, the company’s slogan could be: “Wonder why you didn’t just go someplace else.”

Even at its best, there’s a lot lacking. Food from a restaurant comes with personality and context. Everything from Wonder comes in a bag placed in a wooden cubbyhole. The most delicious dishes I tried — Flay’s decadent creamed spinach or the tender, braised pork cheeks from Jota — reminded me of something I might eat on an airplane.

Though it’s been open just two weeks or so, Wonder already has an impressively low 2.9 rating on Google. Baltimore Redditors have called it “reheated microwave food” and “ghost kitchen slop.” But lest you think it’s a Canton-specific issue, the ratings are quite low across several mid-Atlantic locations, where the brand is flooding the zone with its crappy food.

“It was impressively bad in a way that I have not yet experienced anywhere in DC,” wrote a Washington Redditor, who also compared it to “microwave food.” And yet Wonder just added locations within the last few weeks in Reston, Virginia, and in College Park. The latter has a 2.4 rating on Google.

Still, Wonder appears to be on a mission to woo Baltimore. Just after it opened, I received an invitation to a free dinner along with $150 in Wonder credits as a thank you for attending “so you can keep exploring even more Wonder-ful experiences.” (I passed; journalists don’t do freebies.)

It’s all part of a bigger plan.

Wonder’s billionaire founder Marc Lore told The New York Times he wants nothing less than to create “the Amazon of food and beverage.” The company’s investors include Bain Capital and GV, formerly Google Ventures.

The business also recently acquired Grubhub as well as meal delivery service Blue Apron. The website for Wonder’s Canton location has been offering a selection of familiar fast food from chains like Wendy’s as well as local restaurants like Atwater’s, though you’ll still need to go to Atwater’s to pick up the food.

Here’s an idea: just go to Atwater’s in the first place.