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Ghost Kitchens

October 10, 2019

Grubhub and Just Salad Partner for a Digital-Only Concept Restaurant

Grubhub just added another virtual restaurant concept to what’s quickly becoming a string of them for the third-party delivery service. Today, the company announced a partnership with NYC-based fast-casual chain Just Salad to launch a virtual restaurant called Health Tribes. Starting today, the Health Tribes menu is available exclusively for delivery and pickup orders placed via Grubhub or Just Salad apps and websites, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The overall concept of Health Tribes is around today’s most popular diet plans such as vegan, gluten-free, Paleo, and Keto. The virtual restaurant claims it will help customers more easily find delivery meals that meet those specific criteria eating needs and/or preferences.

It’s not clear in the press release if the meals will be made onsite at Just Salad locations or if Grubhub will use ghost kitchens for production, as it’s done with other virtual restaurants.

Health Tribes isn’t the first nutrition-focused delivery-only concept for Grubhub. The company teamed up with the Whole30 brand and restaurant company Lettuce Entertain You in August to launch a delivery-only restaurant based on the Whole30 diet. In the case of that “restaurant,” all food is made in a ghost kitchen run by Lettuce Entertain You.

Ditto for Grubhub’s other virtual restaurant concept, which it also runs in partnership with Lettuce Entertain You along with magazine-turned-digital food brand Bon Appétit. Bon Appétit Delivered, as it’s called, offers gourmet meals created by the folks at the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen.

Both that and the Whole30 concept are currently only available in Chicago. The Just Salad collab will be more widely available, as the chain has over 50 locations throughout Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, and other cities.

Health Tribes more or less confirms the idea that these digital-only concept restaurants are going to become a regular staple of Grubhub’s offerings. With ghost kitchens becoming more commonplace in the food world, third-party delivery services need to find new ways to differentiate themselves. Grubhub isn’t the only service trying ghost kitchen restaurants: Both Uber Eats and Deliveroo are testing out concepts as well. Where Grubhub stands apart slightly is with its focus on building virtual restaurants around specific diets and with food brands that aren’t necessarily restaurants. Expect that to be something we’ll see much more of from Grubhub in future.

October 9, 2019

Domino’s Is Losing Its Legal Battle Over Website Accessibility. Good

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Domino’s fighting a ruling that a blind customer could sue the chain for violation of the American Disabilities Act (ADA) after he couldn’t use the Domino’s website to order a pizza. The ruling comes at a time when the restaurant experience is more digital than ever thanks to the growing popularity of things like mobile ordering, delivery, and ghost kitchens. It will also likely trigger more action on the part of restaurant chains to make their digital properties accessible to those with disabilities.

For a quick backstory, in July, Domino’s petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of California resident Guillermo Robles, a blind customer who filed the lawsuit after two failed attempts to order a customized pizza from the Domino’s website and app. Robles argued that protections under the ADA apply to online properties as well as brick-and-mortar ones. Domino’s refuted the point, stating that the ADA regulations were written long before digital restaurant ordering existed and that the government hasn’t yet issued rules on how businesses should make their websites ADA compliant.

The puzzling element of this case has always been that Domino’s is a massive entity with ample resources to put towards improving the way its website and app functions for the disabled. That Domino’s prides itself on being more a tech company these days than a pizza chain makes the case even more of a head scratcher. You would think a company that wants to be known for its technology-forward approach to business would be falling over itself to set the standard for ADA-compliant digital properties.

But the opposite seems to be true. Domino’s has instead argued that the recent “tsunami of website accessibility litigation” by plaintiffs is “exploiting the absence of a standard for their own benefit” and that federal standards need to be put in place.

While it’s true that digital properties present more challenges when it comes to staying ADA compliant, Domino’s argument overall has been weak from the start. Rather than use the case as an opportunity to help create clearer regulations and become known as a champion of more ethical tech, the chain has instead chosen to spend millions of dollars fighting a ruling it will in all likelihood still have to comply with.

It’s estimated that blindness in the U.S. is expected to double to more than 8 million people by 2050. Meanwhile, around 26.9 million U.S. adults have some vision loss.

At the same time, though, more than 5 billion people own mobile devices, at least half of which are smartphones, the restaurant experience is only getting more reliant on digital properties. Add to that the rising popularity of delivery-only ghost kitchens, which wouldn’t exist without digital devices, and it’s easy to see why the issue of restaurants making their properties ADA compliant is so urgent now.

While a large number of restaurant websites are still not designed for ADA compliance, this week’s ruling should certainly motivate other chains to provide an acceptable level of service via digital properties to those with visual, auditory, and cognitive disabilities. If Domino’s is smart, it will start using some of its innovation muscle to be part of the solution, rather than continuing to paint itself as the villain of the story.

September 26, 2019

New Food Containers Promise to Keep French Fries Warm and Crispy

One easy way to ruin a relaxed takeout dinner at home are soggy french fries that lack a satisfying crunch when you eat them.

Novolex, a 16-year-old maker of packaging for the food, medical and building industries, hopes to prevent this food catastrophe with its new EcoCraft Fresh & Crispy clamshell containers, which it said in a press release keeps fried foods warm and crunchy. The containers do that with “micro-flute corrugation for superior rigidity and crush strength to maintain food integrity during transport and delivery.” Micro-flutes are the wavy paper in packaging that commonly protect all those items you order online.

“These containers even keep french fries crispy, warm and tasty,” said Adrianne Tipton, senior vice president of innovation at Novolex, in the release. “That’s a real innovation in food delivery.”

The company said the containers are designed for restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets, caterers and delivery services, and are made with a minimum of 33 percent post-consumer recycled content.

A request for more information from Novolex was not returned by press time, so we don’t know when these containers will be available and how much they cost compared to other containers.

Better food containers are much needed now, as delivery apps are becoming more popular, even spurring the creation of ghost restaurants, which exist solely to serve delivery customers. Bloomberg cited data by market-data firm App Annie that food delivery app downloads have increased 380 percent compared to three years ago. DoorDash leads the pack, with Grubhub and Uber Eats not too far behind.

Another company, aptly named Soggy Food Sucks, also offers a solution to the problem with a condensation absorbing patch that can stick to the food containers.

Hopefully, with these innovations in place, you’ll only have a bad feeling about fries when you eat too many of them.

September 25, 2019

Magazine-Turned-Food Brand Bon Appétit Partners With Grubhub for a Virtual Restaurant

Ghost kitchens are becoming such an important part of the food industry now that even non-restaurant food businesses are launching them.

Bon Appétit is the latest. Once just a glossy magazine full of food features and recipes, the publication has (wisely) kept up with the times by evolving into more of a food brand that includes a YouTube channel of instructional videos, a podcast, and live events. Now Bon Appétit has teamed up with Grubhub to open a virtual restaurant in Chicago.

Bon Appétit, Delivered launched yesterday as a delivery-only concept restaurant that features dishes from the brand’s magazine, website, podcast, Instagram feed, and other channels. Recipes for the meals are all developed by Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen editors in collaboration with the folks at Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group, who will run the virtual restaurant from its existing kitchens.

Like most other ghost kitchens, this one has no dining room and exists solely for the purpose of fulfilling delivery orders. The Bon Appétit Delivered menu is available exclusively to Chicago residents right now who order through Grubhub. Pricewise, Bon Appétit, Delivered is what you would expect from a gourmet food brand: main courses cost roughly between $17 and $23, with side dishes hovering around $7.

Bon Appétit, Delivered is actually the second time Grubhub and Lettuce Entertain You have collaborated on a ghost kitchen/virtual restaurant. In August, the delivery service launched a Chicago-based virtual restaurant with another non-restaurant food concept, the Whole30 brand, to deliver Chicago residents meals based on the Whole30 food program.

Both that concept and Bon Appétit, Delivered are, while creative, not that surprising. Because ghost kitchens don’t come with the high costs of maintaining a full-service restaurant with a front of house, they’re increasingly seen as a way to test out new concepts without incurring as much financial risk. And since ghost kitchens are largely delivery-only concepts, they can reach a larger audience faster than brick-and-mortar locations can.

With its latest collaborations, Grubhub is seemingly trying to create a new category of ghost kitchens with non-restaurant entities. The company hasn’t yet said if it will be expanding these concepts beyond Chicago, but whether in the Windy City or elsewhere, Whole30 and Bon Appétit are probably the first of many virtual restaurants to come from Grubhub.

September 19, 2019

Kitchen United Raises $40M for Its Ghost Kitchen Network, Expands East

Kitchen United, which operates a growing network of shared kitchen spaces for restaurants around the U.S., announced today it has closed a Series B round for $40 million. The round was co-led by RXR Realty and GV (formerly Google Ventures), with participation by funds managed by Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, DivcoWest and G Squared. Existing investors and founders John Miller, Harry Tsao, and others participated, too. This brings KU’s total funding raised to $50 million.

The popularity of ghost kitchens — also known as “virtual kitchens,” “kitchen as a service,” and a slew of other monikers — has skyrocketed in recent months as restaurants large and small try to meet the demands of this delivery-crazed era we live in. Kitchen United, which launched in 2017 in Pasadena, CA, has been at the forefront of this movement with its growing network of facilities that can house between 10 and 20 ghost kitchens per location and are home to brands like The Halal Guys, Wetzel’s Pretzels, Canter’s Deli, and others.

In October 2028, Kitchen United got a $10 million investment from Google’s parent company and CaliBurger CEO John Miller.

With the new investment, KU will be moving into more locations — the NYC market in particular. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, part of the deal with RXR Realty involves opening ghost kitchen facilities on RXR properties in the city as well as the tristate area. Such a partnership is wise on KU’s part as the company looks to expand into cities known for astronomical rents when it comes to large spaces. KU will expand to several RXR properties, starting with Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Stamford, CT.

The company currently operates a facility in Chicago as well as its original one in Pasadena. As the press release noted, locations for Scottsdale, AZ and Austin, TX will open soon. And the company is also looking to expand to other major metropolises like San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles — also cities where a deal with a real estate company might not be a bad idea.

In New York, at least, Kitchen United will compete with the newly opened Zuul Kitchens, who just opened their first location in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood and is focusing on that market for further expansion.

August 30, 2019

Zuul Kitchens Is Launching a Huge Ghost Kitchen Facility Next Week in NYC

Come next week there will be a new kitchen in town, but it won’t have any dining room attached. Zuul Kitchens, a ghost kitchen facility that will exist solely for the purpose of helping restaurants fulfill delivery orders, will launch operations in New York City starting in September, according an article from Eater NY.

Zuul will open its first facility in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. According to the Eater article, the 5,000-square-foot space will house nine kitchens and house Sweetgreen, Junzi, and other chains looking to grow the number of delivery orders they can fulfill. Restaurants will pay a monthly membership fee (undisclosed at the moment) that covers kitchen space as well as equipment.

Ghost kitchens are basically restaurant kitchens without a dining room or front-of-house operation. Back in December of 2018, The Spoon predicted that the rise of ghost kitchens would be a major trend unfolding over 2019. So far, that’s been the case. Kitchen United, a major player when it comes to offering restaurants shared kitchen facilities for delivery-only orders, has been rapidly expanding across the U.S., opening or planning to open locations in Atlanta, GA, Austin, TX, Columbus, OH, as well as Washington, D.C. and NYC. Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick runs a network of delivery-focused facilities called CloudKitchens. Outside the U.S., Starbucks opened ghost kitchens in China to fulfill delivery orders and Uber is rumored to be dabbling with them in Europe.

Ghost Kitchens serve a couple of different purposes. They provide a place for existing restaurants to fulfill more delivery orders and also serve as facilities for food entrepreneurs and restaurants to test out new concepts. For example, restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You just announced a partnership with the folks behind the Whole30 program to open a virtual, delivery-only Whole30 Restaurant, with food delivered by Grubhub.

For the SoHo locations, Zuul will focus on established restaurants that have existing brick-and-mortar locations but are looking to grow their delivery orders.

Zuul told Eater it is aiming to fulfill delivery orders in 15 minutes total from the time the order is placed, which would certainly satisfy consumers’ need for speed when it comes to food nowadays. Whether or not the company can meet that goal on every order will depend on the people actually delivering the food. Zuul is using Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash services for the actual delivery, so part of the 15-minute strategy is at the mercy of those couriers. That said, Zuul is apparently offering drivers a waiting area that includes plenty of phone charging stations, places to sit, and refreshments like coffee and tea, all of which could entice drivers to arrive a little early so they’re onsite as soon as an order is ready for delivery.

For now, Zuul will focus on the New York market, which means it won’t have a ton of direct competition at first. That will surely change once Kitchen United comes to town.

August 9, 2019

Deliveroo Rescue Team to Turn Struggling Restaurants Into Delivery-Only Businesses

In a move worthy of reality TV, Deliveroo has launched a “Restaurant Rescue Team” to identify and help struggling restaurants and revive them as delivery-only businesses.

According to a blog post from Deliveroo, the so-called rescue team, set up within Deliveroo’s HQ, will look for restaurants either at risk of closing or already recently closed and offer them a place with Deliveroo Editions, the company’s ghost-kitchen program that houses delivery-only brands and restaurants.

The rescue team will use its “local knowledge and market insights” to identify those restaurants they think will perform well in an area where an Editions kitchen is located. Deliveroo said it will help these restaurants with branding, menu development, and pricing strategies as well as some extra support.

From the blog post:

For a limited period, the restaurants who enter Editions through the Rescue Team will also receive support which is not available to other restaurants on the platform, to help maximise the benefit of moving into a delivery-only kitchen. The selected restaurants will enjoy preferential commission rates, and Deliveroo will cover the costs of rent, equipment, maintenance, utilities, food safety setup and audit costs.

It all sounds a bit like those TV shows where third parties try to save restaurants, bars, and marriages, only this time it’s in real life. Deliveroo said it will first help restaurants in London, then expand to other parts of the UK.

If successful, this ghost-kitchen-as-a-savior model could spark a trend in the industry. Restaurants are going bust at record levels right now as they face increased labor costs, simultaneous labor shortages, and pressure to meet demand for new technologies, including delivery.

Ghost kitchens provide a way for restaurants to cut costs, meet demand for delivery, and even try out new concepts without struggling under the overhead of a full-service business. In this area, Deliveroo faces competition from Uber Eats, who is reported to be doing its own ghost kitchens in Europe.

The “rescue” aspect of Deliveroo’s new intitiative is in keeping with the brand’s self-proclaimed “track record of helping restaurants on the verge of closing.” The company launched a restaurant makeover competition in June to revamp struggling restaurants in the UK.

June 27, 2019

Taster Raises $8M in New Funding for Delivery-Only Brands to Europe

Taster, a French startup who creates restaurant brands made specifically for delivery, has raised $8 million in a new funding round. The round was led by Battery Ventures, with participation from existing investors Heartcore Capital, LocalGlobe, GFC and Marc Ménasé. This brings Taster’s total funding to $13.1 million.

The company currently owns and operates three “restaurants,” which it runs out of ghost kitchens in Paris, London, and Madrid. Out Fry is a Korean Fried Chicken concept, O Ke Kai specializes in Hawaiian food, and Mission Saigon makes Vietnamese fare.

Founder Anton Soulier got the idea for Taster after working at Deliveroo and becoming disenchanted with the quality of the food in the delivery realm. Taster, which he founded in 2017, works with Michelin Star chefs to keep the food as high-quality as possible, and locally sourced, too. The company works out of 12 different kitchens across Paris, London, and Madrid, though it doesn’t actually own the facilities. Instead, Taster partners with companies like Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens, who rent ghost kitchen space out to restaurants.

For the actual delivery part, Taster works with Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Glovo, which means it doesn’t have to manage the logistics behind that part of the operation, and can instead focus on what goes on in the kitchen.

Taster is one of a few companies in Europe building a business off delivery-only restaurant concepts. Frichti is a fellow French startup, delivering pre-made meals customers heat up. It’s notable in particular for owning and operating the full delivery stack, from taking orders to making the food to cycling it over to your apartment.

Elsewhere, Berlin, Germay-based Keatz recently raised €12 million for its virtual kitchen network, which it uses to create in-house restaurant brands much like Taster.

To date, Taster says it employs 115 people, 100 of whom work in the kitchens. The company has already developed some tech that streamlines back-of-house operations like inventory management, supply chain, billing, and integrating delivery platforms. Taster says the new funds will go towards launching three new food brands by the end of 2019 and the company plans to hire more talent in tech and engineering, as well as supply chain and marketing.

March 22, 2019

Virtual Kitchen Network Keatz Raises €12M for Its Food-First Delivery Concept

Berlin, Germany-based Keatz has raised €12 million (~$13.6 million USD) in new funding for its virtual restaurant operation, TechCrunch reports. The round was led by Project A Ventures, Atlantic Labs, UStart, K Fund, and JME Ventures, with participation from RTP Global. This recent round brings Keatz’ total funding to €19.4 million (~$22 million USD).

Keatz operates a network of 10 virtual kitchens throughout Europe — that is, kitchens created specifically for delivery orders, which customers place online or via an app. Keatz’ menu items are currently available through Deliveroo, Foodora, Lieferheld, and Pizza.de.

Rather than partner with restaurants, as many virtual kitchens do, Keatz has taken a less-traveled route and keeps its own portfolio of restaurants created by an in-house culinary team. Also different from most virtual kitchens out there is that Keatz pre-cooks all food in a central kitchen, then ships frozen meals to smaller assembly kitchens. As my colleague Chris Albrecht pointed out recently, “this hub-and-spoke approach to meal creation also allows Keatz to easily swap new brand concepts in and out at each location.” So if Vietnamese cuisine isn’t selling in one area, the concept can be easily swapped out for fish ‘n’ chips, or whatever happens to be in high demand in that vicinity.

Right now, Keatz’ restaurants include vegan food, Hawaiian Poke, Thai curry, a soup brand, Mexican food, and salads and wraps. Keatz chooses its menu items based on which foods are best suited to delivery — that is, food that can withstand an extra 15 minutes getting jostled around during a car or bike trip. “We believe the last unsolved part in food delivery is the preparation of food itself,” Keatz co-founder Paul Gebhardt told TechCrunch.

He would hardly be alone in that opinion. In fact, a growing number of restaurants, restaurant tech companies, and others are starting to focus more on the food itself as the best way to improve the delivery experience for customers. Taster, headquartered in Paris, France, runs kitchens “with military-like discipline” and chooses foods suited to the delivery process.

In the U.S., all manner of companies offer delivery-only concepts with this “food first” focus. ClusterTruck operates a virtual kitchen with an enormous menu of delivery-friendly food items it creates, executes, and delivers itself. And earlier this year, Dig Inn launched its Room Service concept, using virtual kitchens that plan their menus around food that actually gets better in transit. “At the end of the day, the guest isn’t going to come back to you because your technology is amazing, they’ll come back to you because the food is amazing,” Dig Inn Director of Offsite Scott Landers told me recently.

But whether it’s avoiding soggy food or just providing more efficient delivery operations for existing restaurants, companies up and down the restaurant industry are now participating in the virtual kitchen craze. Uber turned heads last week when news broke that it was piloting its own kitchens in Paris. Kitchen United is expanding at a rapid pace, renting kitchen space to restaurants who need or want more space to fulfill delivery orders. And Deliveroo has operated its own kitchens in Europe for some time now.

Keatz launched in 2016. The company says it plans to use the new funding for further expansion of both its food portfolio and the number of kitchens it operates.

March 13, 2019

Eatsa Unveils New Features for Virtual Restaurants, Powers Deliveroo’s Food Hall

Restaurant automation company eatsa announced yesterday a new suite of products aimed specifically at virtual restaurants and delivery-only restaurant concepts. Third-party delivery service Deliveroo is the first to use the technology, at its new food hall in Singapore.

This is eatsa’s first foray into virtual restaurants, also called ghost kitchens, which are basically restaurant-grade kitchen spaces with no dining area and, most of the time, not even a pickup area. More and more restaurants are using these to offload delivery orders from the main kitchen or test out new food concepts. Some restauranteurs also use them to kickstart a brand in a cheaper, less risky way than would be with a full-service operation.

To that end, eatsa’s new tech suite is all about making the prep, pickup, and delivery of food more efficient. New software, called the Omnichannel Intelligent Queue Software, calculates the exact status of an order based on kitchen throughput. With that capability, the eatsa app can give a customer a minute-by-minute status update. For drivers, this more precise ETA helps them know exactly when to get to the restaurant to pick up the food, so it doesn’t sit for too long.

Drivers also get some directional help via the new features — literally. Eatsa’s already known for its digital status boards it has up in restaurants. A version of these will be in the virtual kitchens, along with pickup stations. Eatsa’s shelf-like surfaces that are controlled by sensors and can display the name on the order as well as branding for the third-party service delivering the order.

The first customer for eatsa’s new features is Delveroo, who just opened another Editions site, at Alice @ Mediapolis in Singapore. Customers can order delivery or pickup from the food hall, which features 10 kitchens serving Korean, Vietnamese, Greek, and Japanese food (among other types). In the case of pickup, customers order at self-service kiosks in the hall and retrieve it from one of eatsa’s cubbies, which function much the same way as the aforementioned shelf system.

Companies across the delivery chain are now involved in virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens, from companies like Kitchen United, who rents out kitchen space, to Uber Eats, who might start peddling its own restaurants and food concepts via ghost kitchens.

Eatsa has already teamed up with a few notable names over the last couple years, for traditional restaurants, including Wow Bao in Chicago and MAC’D in San Francisco. The eatsa tech’s popularity is said to be soaring, and expanding overseas and teaming up with a high-profile company like Deliveroo seems to prove that point.

It’s smart for the company to move into the virtual kitchen space, where it’s tech could help it stand out quite a bit. As CEO Tim Young told me a while back, the company’s system is designed to make restaurant operations easier and more efficient, and it’s end-to-end, which means you can roll up every step of your operation into a single system. As restaurants large and small adjust to a world where mobile order and delivery needs to be as efficient as in-house dining, an all-in-one automated platform like eatsa’s could solve several problems at once.

February 12, 2019

Kitchen United Expands Into Atlanta and Columbus

Kitchen United announced today that it has signed lease agreements for spaces in Columbus, OH and Atlanta, GA. The expansions, slated for Spring 2019, will increase the virtual kitchen hub’s presence in markets that are fast becoming hotbeds for food-delivery competition.

Kitchen United, who bills itself as a “culinary on demand” startup, opened its first commissary kitchen space in May 2018 in Pasadena, CA. It followed that launch with a Chicago location that opened in November of the same year, following a $10 million funding round led by GV.

Kitchen United spaces are built specifically for delivery businesses, and can each hold between 10 and 20 different “concepts” (the company’s word for clients). The goal is to provide restaurants space to fulfill the influx of delivery orders without having to open another full restaurant and incur the expense and business risks that go along with an expansion of that magnitude. “Restaurants” rent space and share equipment, and Kitchen United has its own staff to handle dishwashing and packaging orders for delivery drivers.

As my colleague Chris Albrecht wrote last year:

Unlike other virtual or “ghost” kitchens, where restaurants can experiment with new cuisines, Kitchen United’s main mission is to help national and local restaurant chains keep up with demand for their existing menus. Restaurants that want to sign on with Kitchen United can either pay straight rent, or, if Kitchen United believes it can hit the right numbers, there is an option for revenue sharing.

According to the press release, the Columbus location is set to open near the city’s downtown and close to the Ohio State University. The Atlanta location will be housed in the fast-growing West Midtown area, with close access to Georgia Tech. Both locations are in areas that have undergone significant growth in recent years, and give us an idea of markets Kitchen United is targeting. While places like Los Angeles and New York City are part of the company’s future expansion, they also share a list with a number of slightly smaller U.S. cities, Phoenix, Seattle, and Denver are among them.

It makes sense, in many ways. Mega-cities like NYC and LA are important places to get a foothold, but they’re also extremely crowded — arguably saturated — markets for virtual kitchen concepts. But with people leaving top-tier cities in favor of places like Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, and even Tampa, and with the food delivery market expanding at a blinding pace into those places, there’s both money and reputation to be made.

Kitchen United said in a press release it plans to open 15 new locations in the coming year, including those mentioned above.

July 31, 2018

Delivery Is Making These Restaurants Literally Redesign the Way They Do Business

As the country’s appetite for food delivery grows and the market inches towards a projected $15.9 billion by 2020, restaurants are under pressure to adapt.

More and more, that means altering the physical restaurant space so it can better accommodate this influx of new orders. Extra meals require extra bodies to cook and package the food, after all, not to mention extra space for third-party devices, and somewhere to put completed orders waiting to be picked up by a delivery driver.

It’s wishful thinking to believe that a food delivery industry standard will emerge, since every business has its own unique space — and therefore, its own unique needs. Instead, restaurants are trying out different approaches; some on a large scale, some on a smaller one. A handful of promising ones have emerged when it comes to creatively solving the space issue.

For those with room to expand, creating a separate entrance and/or delivery area is one option.

Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen just opened a location in Ft. Worth, TX that includes “Cheddar’s first dedicated carry-out area.” It’s close to the kitchen but separate from the main dining room and has its own entrance with direct access to the parking lot. For a Grubhub or UberEats driver, this is a potentially huge timesaver, as picking up an order no longer involves weaving through crowds around the bar and flagging down an employee’s attention.

Velvet Taco conceptualized a separate entrance for to-go orders long before the delivery boom went off. The Dallas, TX-based chain offers its famed “backdoor chicken” order, where customers stroll up to the back door, hand over $20, and get a bag of goodies in return, rotisserie chicken and tortillas included. Adjusting for more delivery orders was just a matter of routing them along the same path. Third-party services (Velvet Taco works with several of the usual suspects) collect orders at the back door of the chain’s Austin, TX location. Meanwhile, a brand-new Dallas, TX location also includes a pickup window that can be accessed via a dedicated parking lot.

If a second door isn’t an option, there are still plenty of ways to work with space inside the restaurant’s four walls.

Culiver City, CA-based Tender Greens divides its customers into two lines: one for walk-ins, one for delivery and order-ahead takeout. That logic applies to the kitchen as well, where cooks are split into two separate lines so those prepping in-house orders aren’t bogged down by the number of tickets for delivery. At the chain’s El Segundo, CA location, even the furniture pulls double duty: a bartop functions by day as a counter for preparing to-go orders, then becomes communal seating for sit-down customers. Ditto for Tender Greens’ flagship NYC location at Union Square, which features 14-foot shelves, separate from the dining room, where third-party delivery services can grab their designated orders and go (a nearby area provides the same convenience for customers picking up food).

Some restaurants are scrapping dining room altogether. Enter the ghost kitchen, the cloud kitchen, or whatever you want to call it. These establishments operate with delivery-only models, where there’s no front of house and cooks serve up orders solely for delivery drivers to pick up.

The Green Summit Group gets a lot of press in this space for its commissary kitchens in NYC and Chicago, which work exclusively with Grubhub. These guys basically run multiple “restaurants” whose operations are housed in the same kitchen and whose food is cooked by the same chefs.

There’s an economical attraction to ghost kitchens, of course. Those using ghost kitchens don’t have to worry about buying equipment, hiring a new staff for every new location, or even providing simple things like cutlery and tablecloths. Businesses who can’t, or don’t want to, deal with these elements or lock themselves into a 10-year lease and buy their own equipment can also look to folks like Kitchen United, who operates a shared kitchen space available for hourly or monthly rent which can house up to 15 restaurant operations. “When a restaurant operator comes to a KU kitchen, they get a virtual restaurant solution,” Kitchen United CEO, Jim Collins told Chris Albrecht a few months ago.

So is the dining room dying? Absolutely not. Dining out as an experience will be with us until customers run out of money or the Food Network runs out of celebrity chefs to create. Anyway, delivery wasn’t designed to replace the Michelin star, or (probably) even the Olive Garden; it’s just an easier, faster way to get a basic dinner without having to go to much trouble. Restaurants are starting to realize its importance and adjust their spaces accordingly.

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