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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Ghost Kitchens

New Restaurant Restrictions Put the Value of Restaurant Tech to the Test

States and cities across the U.S. have imposed new restrictions and in some cases lockdowns that will once again shutter indoor dining. As they’ve done in the past, these restrictions once again call into question how restaurant tech can help restaurants pandemic-proof themselves and stay in business.

A stay-at-home order for Chicago residents goes into effect today. Restaurants must close by 11 p.m. each night and may only offer delivery, takeout, and outdoor seating. The city didn’t completely shutter indoor dining; it’s allowed so long as tables are within eight feet of an open window. But given Chicago’s typical wintertime temperatures, neither that nor patio seating will likely be popular options for diners right now.

New Mexico, and Oregon have imposed far tighter restrictions. Effective last week, Oregon restaurants and bars must return to takeout- and delivery-only service. New Mexico has similar restrictions as residents shelter under a two-week-long stay-at-home order.

Likewise, restaurants in Washington State and Michigan must halt indoor dining and stick to takeout and delivery models. Other states, including Minnesota and New York, have imposed curfews on restaurants, and for everyone, the threat of another lockdown looms large.

One difference this time around is that unlike in March, restaurants have more tools at their disposal when it comes to fulfilling off-premises orders. Since the early days of the pandemic, most restaurant tech companies have offered so-called “contactless” solutions that minimize human-to-human contact. Some parts of those packages, like QR-code-based ordering for the dining room, will be of little help right now, since there is no dining room in many places. But other features, such as software to power online order processing, could help restaurants fulfill takeout tickets faster and in a more organized fashion. Elsewhere, delivery integrators a la Chowly and ChowNow are now more widely used than in March and help restaurants manage delivery orders coming through multiple sales channels (DoorDash vs. Uber Eats vs. Caviar, for example). 

The option to go virtual is also more widely available. That point was underscored recently in the massive $120 million sum Ordermark raised for its NextBite platform, which pairs restaurants with kitchen space to help them develop and operate virtual restaurant brands. Along those lines, countless options for ghost kitchens have sprung up from the likes of Zuul, Virtual Kitchen, ShiftPixy, and many others. Still others, like restaurant chain Wow Bao, offer creative takes on the ghost kitchen/virtual restaurant concept that could benefit not only themselves but other local restaurants.

These and other tech solutions will undoubtedly help restaurants as they navigate new lockdowns and restrictions. The unknown factor is whether they will be enough. Big-name QSR brands have the deep pockets to turn their drive-thrus into digital innovation centers and reinvent their physical footprints, and restaurants with a certain level of demand will find ghost kitchens useful for pandemic-proofing operations. 

The indie restaurants will, however, struggle more than any other restaurant type. These are businesses that have neither the money to invest in sophisticated tech solutions nor the demand to justify a big ghost kitchen operation. Fee caps may help as far as delivery orders go: cities across the country have implemented mandatory caps on the commission fess third-party delivery services can charge these businesses, and if stricter lockdowns ensue, other municipalities may do the same. 

None of this guarantees a future for independent restaurants. One thing that hasn’t changed, not yet anyway, between previous spikes in the pandemic and this one is that off-premises remains a lifeline for restaurants, not the lifeline. Many restaurants still grapple with the fact that they were built — from the food they serve to the atmosphere they provide — for an on-premises experience. Developments to turn on-premises experiences into those suited for takeout and delivery are moving fast. Unfortunately, the pandemic is moving faster. Seen in that light, restaurant tech’s big priority right now should be helping smaller restaurants complete the transition from the dining room to the living room.

Reef Technology Raises $700M to Reinvent the Neighborhood, Including Ghost Kitchens

Reef Technology, which turns underutilized urban space into what it calls “neighborhood hubs,” announced today it has just raised a $700 million syndicate investment to further that vision. TechCrunch first reported the news. Softbank and Mubadala led the round, along with Oaktree, UBS Asset Management, and Target Global. This brings Reef’s total funding to $701.9 million.

Reef started its life as ParkJockey with the goal of more efficiently managing parking lots. Over time, however, the company has evolved from disruptor of parking lots to a real estate business that provides infrastructure for retail spaces, clinics, and cloud kitchens, among other ventures. The idea is to turn these underutilized spaces in cities into hubs for local neighborhood businesses. Think town square of olden days, only in this version it’s equipped with shipping containers that hold kitchens and stores and powered by software.

According to TechCrunch, Reef will use the new funds to scale from about 4,800 locations to 10,000 locations around the U.S. Ari Ojalvo, the company’s cofounder and chief executive, said ghost kitchens “will be a significant part of non-parking revenue” for Reef. 

These ghost kitchens are housed in Reef’s mobile trailers that can be parked virtually anywhere there is underutilized real estate. Restaurants wanting to offload delivery orders or those launching virtual concepts can rent the spaces. Right now, the kitchens house a mix of local and national brands across the country, including Saladworks, Wow Bao, and BurgerFi. Customers order meals via the major third-party delivery apps (DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc.).

Reef’s gargantuan fundraise comes a time when ghost kitchens, virtual restaurants, and virtual food halls are becoming an integral part of the restaurant industry. The future of the restaurant dining room still hangs in the balance — especially with winter coming and COVID-19 cases rising. That in turn is forcing restaurants, restaurant tech companies, and infrastructure providers like Reef to rethink the formats in which customers access to-go and delivery meals.

Euromonitor recently predicted the ghost kitchen sector will be worth $1 trillion by 2030, and there are investment dollars a plenty to support that projection. Ordermark just raised $120 million to build out its virtual restaurant network, which will utilize ghost kitchens. NYC-based Zuul raised another $9 million for its Big Apple-based concept. And outside the U.S., Yummy Corporation (Indonesia), iKcon (Dubai), and Zomato (India) have all raised capital in the last few months.

In Reef’s case, its kitchens also provide employees to prep the food in addition to physical space. The company has over 100 kitchens across 20 markets in North America. Between the ongoing pandemic and the new influx of investment, those numbers will rise quickly in the coming months. 

If you’re interested in diving deep into ghost kitchens, you won’t want to miss The Spoon’s upcoming ghost kitchen virtual event on December 9th.

In DoorDash We Trust?

It’s our weekly restaurant tech news wrapup!

Food delivery aggregators: love ‘em or hate ‘em, few would at this point deny that restaurants need them right now. Maybe that’s not where we’d like to be as a restaurant industry, but it’s where the pandemic has forced businesses — a point underscored by new survey data from tech company Raydiant. According to the new report, which surveyed restaurant operators and managers, 37.5 percent of restaurants would not have been able to stay in business without third-party delivery apps over the last several months.

But not all third-party delivery aggregators are equal in the eyes of restaurants when it comes to trust. Arguably the most interesting part of Raydiant’s survey is the breakdown of which delivery service respondents “associated most with trust and support.” DoorDash won in a landslide, with 58 percent, followed next by Grubhub at 18 percent and Uber Eats at 17 percent. Seamless, which is owned by Grubhub, came in last, with a whopping 1 percent.

The report does not go into specifics as to how it defines “trust” and “support.” But a quick comparison of recent developments from these services illustrates why the names stacked up as they did in Raydiant’s survey. 

DoorDash was quick to respond to restaurant shutdowns when the pandemic came Stateside back in March, waiving fees for certain restaurant partners and setting up a relief fund for businesses. Since that time, the company — which is trekking towards an IPO — has positioned itself as an ally to struggling restaurants. Just earlier this week, it launched its Reopen for Delivery initiative, which will help shuttered restaurants rebrand as virtual concepts. The company is not without its controversies, but it’s managed to steer clear of major ones over the last several months.

Grubhub also responded speedily to the restaurant shutdowns — by making an opaque announcement that initially seemed to say it was waiving commission fees when in reality the service was only delaying collection of them. Grubhub has also racked up numerous complaints from restaurants, including bogus phone fees, outrageous commission fees, listing non-partnered restaurants, and this bizarre saga. 

Uber Eats and Postmates generate fewer controversial headlines, though they, along with DoorDash, also charge restaurants unsustainably high commission fees for every order placed through their platforms.

All this doesn’t mean restaurants should ditch their partnerships with the others in favor of working with DoorDash. Many agree that more is better when it comes to delivery aggregators these days. And like I said, we can hate on delivery services all we want, but the complicated logistics of delivery in 2020 makes them cheaper and faster for restaurants than any other solution that exists right now.

Nor, however, should restaurants hedge all their bets on third-party delivery services, which are definitely not hedging all of theirs on restaurants. Recent moves by both DoorDash and Uber Eats into grocery delivery make clear that these services will go where there’s money to be made. Online grocery sales are expected to hit $250 billion by 2025. The restaurant industry, meanwhile, has already lost billions of dollars due to the pandemic.

Simultaneously, new approaches to restaurant delivery are emerging that bring ordering, branding, and sometimes even the drivers back into restaurants’ control. This will only accelerate with the rise of virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens. Restaurants may still need third-party delivery, but it’s only a matter of time before they need it, or at least pieces of it, less.

It all makes third-party delivery something of a fair-weather friend to restaurants. Despite the relief funds and press releases proclaiming they’re here to help restaurants, delivery services are also making clear that they are, first and foremost, tech companies in the business of moving goods. They’ll go wherever those goods happen to be most plentiful. Given that, trust around these services seems tenuous at best when it comes to restaurants.

Dive Deep Into Ghost Kitchen Strategy

Delivery isn’t the only thing that’s here to stay. Ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants have also proven themselves mainstays of the restaurant biz over the last few months. But what’s the difference between a ghost kitchen and a virtual restaurant? Does every restaurant need to invest in this space? Where the heck does one even begin?

On December 9, The Spoon will gather together restaurants, industry analysts, restaurant tech companies, ghost kitchen operators, virtual restauranteurs, and others to talk through the above questions and more. The day will provide a variety of perspectives on where the ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant sectors are headed as well as next steps for those wanting to get involved.

Register to join us for this event.  If you’re in the ghost kitchen space and are interested in sponsoring the event, let us know!

Dunkin Donuts

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Dunkin’ will close over 680 underperforming stores, according to the company’s Q3 2020 earnings release. The company said it will allow these franchisees to reopen in Dunkin’s “NextGen” store format or relocate to higher-traffic areas that can accommodate drive-thru.

Delivery integrator Chowly announced this week it has added Grubhub to its list of delivery partners. Mutual customers of the two companies can use both pieces of restaurant tech to streamline the management and fulfillment process of their delivery orders.

Chicago has shut down indoor dining again in response to rising COVID-19 numbers. No indoor service, including bar service, will be allowed, and outdoor dining must end by 11 p.m.

 

Ordermark Raises $120M to Build More Virtual Restaurants

Restaurant tech company Ordermark announced today it has raised a $120 million Series C round led by the Softbank Vision Fund with participation from existing investor Act One Ventures. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Ordermark will use the new funds to “help more restaurants transition to online ordering during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”

Ordermark has been helping restaurants incorporate off-premises orders into their operations since long before the pandemic. The company’s hardware-software combo consolidates all order tickets (delivery, takeout, in-house, etc.) into a single channel to make the management of these tickets easier for restaurant staff.

The company has also been something of a trailblazer in the world of virtual restaurants through its Nextbite platform, which is Ordermark’s portfolio of delivery-only brands. Most recently, Nextbite launched rapper Wiz Khalifa’s Hotbox restaurant concept, much to the delight of munchies fans everywhere.

Ordermark/Nextbite relies on underutilized kitchen space in restaurants to fulfill orders for these virtual brands, which gives the restaurants themselves a chance to build up some incremental revenue. While today’s press release did not specifically name new brands or restaurant partners, the company is clearly looking to build out this virtual restaurant portfolio. Jeff Housenbold, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said in the release that Softbank will “support [Ordermark’s] mission to help independent restaurants optimize online ordering and generate incremental revenue from under-utilized kitchens.”

Alex Canter, Ordermark’s cofounder and CEO, added that restaurants “must get creative by embracing technology and new sources of revenue generation to reach customers outside of their four walls.”

Ordermark said that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nextbite has launched 15 brands and has added over 1,000 delivery-only restaurants nationwide.

DoorDash’s Launches Its ‘Reopen for Delivery’ Program for Independent Restaurants

Today, the third-party delivery service DoorDash announced its Reopen for Delivery program. Through it, restaurants that were forced to close due to COVID-19 can “re-establish their foot print in their city” by reviving their businesses as virtual restaurants run out of ghost kitchens, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The program will select restaurants that were forced to close because of the pandemic and pair them with ghost kitchens and virtual restaurant facilities around the country. For example, Chicago-based Krazy Hog BBQ, the first restaurant to join the program, is operating its delivery-only concept out of virtual kitchen company Á La Couch’s space. Á La Couch is also home to restaurant brands like Wow Bao and Mac’d.  

DoorDash said it will use this model of pairing restaurants with kitchen providers for other businesses, though it hasn’t named any besides Krazy Hog at the moment. DoorDash operates its own ghost kitchen facility in Northern California but has not said whether the location will play a part in the Reopen for Delivery program.

In addition to kitchen space, restaurants will also have the option to cook and fulfill their own orders or outsource that work to the kitchen facility’s existing staff. DoorDash will, of course, provide the technical logistics for order processing and the drivers for the last mile of delivery. 

The program is reminiscent of Deliveroo’s “Restaurant Rescue Team” initiative from 2019, where the UK-based service would nab struggling restaurants and rebrand them as delivery-only concepts under Deliveroo’s ghost kitchen program. 

Like Deliveroo’s program, Reopen for Delivery is one way restaurants can continue serving customers without incurring some of the high overhead costs of running a full brick-and-mortar location complete with front-of-house space and staff. 

The deal, of course, comes with some compromises. Since DoorDash is powering Reopen for Delivery, restaurants that sign up with the program are to some degree locked into the delivery service’s infrastructure. And they’re presumably still going to pay the high commission fees that have caused so much controversy of late.

For many, though, there may be no other options right now. Ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants are currently being hailed as a lifeline for many restaurants struggling in the wake of the pandemic. But setting up a ghost kitchen operation requires a certain amount of demand and capital not every business has. Having a third party like DoorDash facilitate that process is, for better or worse, a cheaper, faster way to fulfill off-premises orders while we wait for the restaurant biz to get back on its feet. 

SKS 2020: Ghost Kitchen’s Changing Tech Trends

The definition of “ghost kitchen” is changing rapidly as more restaurants go off-premises and even non-restaurant food entities, like grocery stores, hop onboard the trend.

But as was discussed during our ghost kitchen strategy panel at SKS 2020 this week, the common denominator beneath all shapes and sizes of ghost kitchens is the technology powering them. As Ashley Colpaart, CEO of The Food Corridor, said on the panel, ghost kitchens are all about “going direct to the consumer through technology platforms.”

Joining Colpaart and myself were Michael Schaefer, global lead for food and bev at Euromonitor, and Bolt Kitchen CEO Nick Avedesian. Everyone agreed there is a lot of technology being thrown at restaurant owners and ghost kitchen operators nowadays. This makes sense because, as Schaefer said, more of our dining experiences are getting mediated by the smartphone. Keeping that in mind, panelists pointed to a few different areas of tech that are especially important to the ghost kitchen operation right now.

One is software that can integrate the many different channels orders flow through from customer to kitchen. Most restaurants, large and small, work with more than one delivery partner, which causes a deluge of different orders from different channels in what’s commonly referred to as “tablet hell.” Using a delivery integrator (Olo and Chowly are two such companies) lessens the chance of an order getting lost in translation on its way to the kitchen and, Avedesian said, creates “a better experience for your staff.”

It’s not just the back-of-house that needs optimizing, though. Colpaart mentioned the need for “the shopping experience” — that is, the experience a customer has finding and ordering from a restaurant — to be as easy as possible. Along the same lines, restaurants themselves will need technologies that can help them become more visible in this brave new world of online delivery marketplaces and virtual food halls. Some solutions, like Lunchbox, are working very closely with restaurants on this visibility and marketing aspect.

Then there’s delivery, one of the restaurant biz’s most controversial topics right now. Among the (many) griefs with third-party delivery services a la Uber Eats and DoorDash right now is that restaurants can’t control their own branding or customer experience through these platforms. Some white label delivery services, like DoorDash Drive, are emerging to address this. Avedesian said said we will see a lot more of these white label, custom-branded solutions in future.

We may also see more delivery go in-house at restaurants. That trend was actually happening long before the pandemic, with Panera being a notable early adopter of the practice. Now, panelists said everyone from large enterprises to mom-and-pop shops are considering the native delivery experience. One group we may see doing this in large numbers in future is QSRs like the aforementioned Panera or Panda Express, which recently launched its own delivery program. 

Not discussed on the panel but something that sprang to my mind is this: Is this shift to native delivery creating an opportunity for restaurant tech companies to improve the in-house delivery experience? And will those innovations be enough to disrupt third-party delivery as we know it?

Stay tuned on that one.

RobinFood Raises $16M for Its Cloud Restaurant Network

Cloud restaurant network RobinFood (née Muy) announced today it has raised a $16 million debt funding round from MGM Sustainable Energy Fund II LP. This brings RobinFood’s total funding to date to $36 million, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

As Muy, the Colombia-based company made a name for itself around Latin America though its network of ghost kitchens. Muy recently decided to rebrand, bringing both its physical and virtual restaurant initiatives under the same RobinFood brand. 

Customers can order delivery-only meals from multiple different virtual restaurant brands operated by RobinFood, including Muy, Just Burgers, and El Original. Meals can be ordered via the company’s mobile app, or with a touchscreen kiosk at one of its brick-and-mortar locations, which offer limited seating. These physical locations feature automat-like cubbies where customers retrieve the food, essentially eliminating interactions between restaurant staff and customers. RobinFood’s tech stack, meanwhile, merges its virtual restaurants and kitchens and its physical spaces into the same system, for smoother operations. 

The company said in today’s press release that it plans to use the new financing round to continue its growth across Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, adding 3,500 new “brand-locations” in Latin America over the next five years. Its goal is to sell “more than one billion dollars annually by 2026.”

If that seems like a hefty number, consider that Euromonitor recently predicted the ghost kitchen market would be worth $1 trillion by 2030. Around the world, ghost kitchens and networks of virtual restaurants are taking over at a time when many brick-and-mortar locations are going out of business and the pandemic has fueled a greater desire among consumers for delivery and takeout meals.

RobinFood’s marriage of ghost kitchens and physical spaces is yet-another take on the ever-evolving ghost kitchen model. And the company’s funding to-date suggests there is plenty of opportunity in Latin America for ghost kitchens, and restaurant tech in general.

RobinFood’s news today follows recent fundraises from other ghost kitchen companies, including Indonesia’s Yummy Corporation ($12 million), U.S.-based Virtual Kitchen ($20 million), and iKcon in Dubai ($5 million). 

Yummy Corporation Raises $12M to Expand Its Ghost Kitchen Network

Indonesia-based cloud kitchen management company Yummy Corporation has raised a $12 million Series B round of funding, according to a report from TechCrunch. The round was led by SoftBank Ventures Asia and included participation from new investors AppWorks, Coca Cola Amatil X, Palm Drive Capital, Quest Ventures, and Vectr Ventures. Also participating were existing investors Intudo Ventures and Sovereign’s Capital.

Founded in 2019, Yummy operates a network of fully managed delivery-only kitchens across Jakarta. It rents space to existing food and bev brands, providing them kitchen infrastructure as well as the necessary staff to assist in fulfilling delivery and takeout orders.

The company says it will use the new funds to expand into other cities and further develop its tech platform. 

Which cities Yummy next heads to is yet to be announced, but if they’re anywhere in Southeast Asia, the company will face plenty of competition. Food delivery service GrabFood already operates over 50 ghost kitchens across countries in the region, including Indonesia. Delivery service Gojek also has ghost kitchens in Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia and India. 

Earlier this year, Euromonitor said the global ghost kitchen market could be worth $1 trillion by 2030. That may be an absurdly optimistic number, but there’s no denying the popularity of the ghost kitchen particularly since the pandemic forced most of the world into lockdown and turned the traditional restaurant model on its head. In the last few months alone, we’ve seen numerous sizable fundraising rounds from ghost kitchen companies all over the world as well as more networks of virtual restaurants come to market.

Yummy Corporation raised a $7.8 million Series A round in 2019. This new round brings the company’s total funding to $19.8 million.

 

Kbox Global Raises £12M to Expand Its Virtual Restaurant Network

Virtual restaurant platform Kbox Global announced this week it has raised £12 million (~$15.5 million USD) to expand its food delivery concept. The round was led by London-based venture firm Balderton Capital, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Founded in 2019 in London, Kbox operates more than 30 delivery-only restaurant brands. It licenses these brands, along with a technology stack, to restaurants and other foodservice operations looking for incremental revenue to add to their businesses.  

To do this, Kbox assesses each restaurant, including its location and main demographic, then uses those factors to choose the most relevant virtual restaurant brands for the business to offer. Restaurants cook and fulfill the orders themselves, with their existing staff, while Kbox’s tech stack integrates with third-party delivery services that handle the last mile of the delivery.

The company says there are no upfront fees for restaurants looking to utilize this concept, which is a way for restaurants to diversify their food offerings without investing in a full brick-and-mortar operation. In essence, restaurants are turning themselves into ghost kitchens for Kbox brands by partnering with the company.

The idea of one restaurant licensing and running a completely different brand from a third-party is a more recent development in the world of ghost kitchens, though Kbox isn’t alone in expanding the concept. Chicago-based Wow Bao said in April it was licensing its own menu to other restaurant brands in much the same manner as Kbox. Some Fatburger locations double as ghost kitchens for the chain’s sister brand Hurricane Grill & Wings. And let’s not forget about the celebrities launching their own virtual restaurant brands that existing businesses cook and fulfill. 

Needless to say, restaurants need any extra revenue they can get right now, thanks to the pandemic shuttering dining rooms left and right and all but forcing many brands to go the ghost kitchen route. However, we’ve yet to see many numbers about how financially fruitful it is to run a third-party brand out of one’s own restaurant kitchen.

For its part, Kbox says it is on track to have 2,000 of these kitchens in the UK before the end of 2021, and is also in the midst of an international expansion. The company has franchise agreements in Australia and India and says operations will launch in another eight countries at some point next year. The new capital from Balderton will support this expansion, as well as help Kbox establish a presence in the U.S. in earl 2021.

The Food Tech Show: Walmart+ and Ghost Kitchen Robots

It may be the waning days of summer, but there’s still time to get outside for a walk and listen to podcasts and the Spoon team is here to help with our latest episode of The Food Tech Show.

This week, the team discusses the launch of the strategy behind Walmart+, Walmart’s long-rumored membership program centered around grocery and food which will now launch on September 15th.

Other stories discussed on the podcast include:

You can subscribe to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you listen. If you’re a regular listener, we’d really appreciate a review!

You can also listen by clicking play below or downloading direct to your device.

From Wiz Khalifa to Tyga, Are Celebrity Ghost Kitchens the Next Big Thing?

Throughout the latter half of 2019, a prediction that came up repeatedly here at The Spoon was celebrity chefs launching their own virtual restaurant concepts. What we didn’t anticipate was just plain ol’ celebrities getting onboard the trend, but that’s exactly what’s happening now.

An announcement this week from delivery integrator Ordermark added more momentum to the celebrity-as-virtual restauranteur trend: rapper Wiz Khalifa forthcoming Hotbox concept.

Wiz Khalifa’s Hotbox restaurant, which is slated to open October 1, will feature a “top-shelf munchie menu” curated by the rapper and powered by Ordermark. The full menu is not available yet, though a couple featured items — the “Taylor Gang Turkey Burger” and “Blazed Ends” dishes — give a pretty good idea of what to expect once the restaurant launches.

Restaurant owners wanting to cook and deliver the forthcoming Hotbox menu from their own kitchens can do so by becoming a fulfillment partner via Nextbite, the delivery-only restaurant company owned by Ordermark. In other words, your local mom-and-pop can now become a ghost kitchen for the Wiz Khalifa brand. That in turn could provide restaurants with some much-needed incremental revenue that might keep some from completely going under during this strange and challenging time for restaurants. 

Cooking someone else’s menu from your own restaurant kitchen isn’t a brand-new concept. As I said, it’s a form of a ghost kitchen that’s employed by the likes of well-known chains like Fatburger and Wow Bao. Tacking a celebrity name to the concept is an intriguing twist on this. A virtual Wiz Khalifa restaurant will generate a certain amount of interest inherently because of the rapper’s status. And if the food winds up being tasty and affordable, there’s potential for restaurants to tap into a Khalifa’s huge fanbase. 

The celebrity-turned-restauranteur thing isn’t brand-new, either, though it’s only been in the last several months we’ve seen this concept go virtual. Rapper Tyga operates a delivery-only restaurant featuring chicken bites. Steve Aoki has a virtual pizza joint called Pizzaoki. Rachel Ray, launched a limited-time virtual restaurant with Uber Eats last year.

And with off-premises orders still the main sales channel for restaurants, delivery companies looking to diversify, and ghost kitchens becoming the norm, the above examples are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. 

Updated: Whataburger’s Food Truck Set to Tour the U.S. in 2021

Iconic Texas-based QSR chain Whataburger announced this week it has upped its off-premises game with a 36-foot-long food truck that will take a multi-state tour in 2021. 

The forthcoming Whataburger food truck will be a totally mobile kitchen the chain says has “the same kind of burger-making power as a brick-and-mortar restaurant.” Whataburger developed it in partnership with Cruising Kitchens, a well-known food truck manufacturer that has made mobile kitchens for everyone from Hard Rock Cafe to the LA Dodgers. 

Whataburger also says the truck can be used for disaster relief, and honestly in this day and age it isn’t hard to imagine the company reformatting the truck at some point to serve frontline healthcare workers or communities impacted by, say, a hurricane. 

The truck will “tour” U.S. cities where Whataburger already has a presence, as well as those the chain is planning to expand too. That’s in keeping with the general aim of ghost kitchens, which a growing number of QSRs are using to reach customers in new markets or serve more off-premises orders in existing ones. 

While there’s undeniably something fun about a bright orange touring burger truck, it’s also a fairly practical move on the part of Whataburger. Like other chains, it’s had to pivot more of its business to off-premises over the last several months as well as increase its capabilities around mobile ordering. It’s currently operating dining rooms with limited seating, but with the trajectory of the coronavirus still uncertain (and still rising), it’s not unreasonable to think dining rooms might have to shut down in full again before this is all over.

While it’s not technically a ghost kitchen, the forthcoming food truck more or less serves the same purpose, which is to help the chain reach a wider audience and keep operations going even in the face of unprecedented global crises. According to this week’s announcement, Cruising Kitchens founder Cameron Davies has wanted to build a food truck for more than a decade. With the restaurant industry sitting squarely at the crossings of off-premises, ghost kitchens, and more mobility, now seems the perfect time for a test drive.

Note: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that Cameron Davies was CEO of Whataburger.