For Dallas chef Lori Moore, operating her new business, Vspot, out of what is commonly called a “ghost kitchen” is no figment of anyone’s imagination. Her vegan-inspired menu evolved from her fanciful passion for food, but Lori’s lunch and dinner spot is the result of years of training, hard work, and planning. In her case, the “ghost” part of the equation is more of a conscious choice than a need to follow a growing trend.
“I was always that weird kid that loved veggies,” Moore said in a recent interview with The Spoon. After graduating from Dallas’ Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in 2011, Lori toyed with the idea of opening a vegan food truck. Still, the cloud kitchen concept allowed her to focus more on cooking and less on infrastructure.
In order to avoid tackling complex technology on her own, Moore took advantage of a platform offered by Los Angeles-based CloudKitchens, a company founded by Diego Berdakin in 2016. Key features of CloudKitchehn are tools that allow Moore to track orders and work with suppliers. The consumer-facing process starts with Flipdish, a seperate technology, that takes customer orders, which are sent to the kitchen owner for fulfillment. Next in line is Otter, an AI-based technology, which seamlessly connects to various delivery options, including Uber Eats, Door Dash, Caviar, and Grubhub.
“Using the technology of a cloud kitchen, it takes care of the technology that is out of my range,” Moore said. “It lets me do what I do best—cook.
Before starting Vspot, Moore offered meal prep, which gave customers menu options in advance that the Dallas chef would prepare for her clients to pick up. Her weekly menu would include five different choices for lunch and five for dinner.
Moore’s decision to focus on vegan food was partially based on her food preferences and appealing to the North Texas’ growing interest in plant-based foods, which was aligned to her community becoming more health-conscious during the COVID-19 pandemic. The commissary where she does all her cooking is in Trinity Grove, near the downtown area, where many of her regulars live.
“Many people are intimidated by the idea of being vegan,” she said, commenting that many are shocked when they order and enjoy a vegan burger. “They can’t believe it’s vegan and can’t wrap their head around it.”
Between 75% and 80% of her food is made from scratch, with such items and burgers, cheese, chicken, and buns provided by a local purveyor. Listening to what she jokingly calls “voices in her head,” Moore hopes to add soups and other staples to her roster of vegan offerings.
As with most successful upstart food companies, Moore is a heavy user of social media leaning on Instagram to whet people’s appetite with pictures and videos of her burgers (Impossible Burger), vegan chicken sandwiches, sides, and desserts.
The cloud/ghost kitchen concept fits Moore’s vision to a T. She refuses to be satisfied with her single location in Dallas, hoping to expand her idea across the country. She would find a place for the cloud kitchen and train people to handle the food prep in order to carry out that vision. Of course, leaning heavily on her model of using Flipdish and CloudKitchens for the required tech muscle would be a significant key towards achieving her long-term goal.
Lori Moore is not alone in seeing the power and profit of vegan-themed cloud kitchens. Aside from startups in China and India, there are Souley Vegan, based in Oakland; Good Vibes in Sacramento; Qusqo Bistro in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles-based Plant Nation.
Leave a Reply