Ghost kitchens and virtual brands are changing the face of the food service industry. Both innovations are creating a new way for entrepreneurs to break into the industry. Join us as we explore the benefits of ghost kitchens and how restaurateurs can use them.
What Are Ghost Kitchens?
Ghost kitchens are professional kitchens that are not tied to a restaurant. It is a facility that exists, usually to support a virtual restaurant brand. It provides a physical location to develop a brand and experiment with recipes and menus.
What Is A Virtual Brand?
A virtual brand is a restaurant that does not have a brick and mortar location that customers can dine at. Virtual brands have grown out of the expansion of the food delivery industry. Doordash, GrubHub, Uber Eats, Postmates, Bite Squad…the list for delivery goes on and on. Not to mention the local delivery services that have managed to survive.
Virtual brands do not serve customers in a restaurant, and their entire development is for delivery services. Sometimes virtual brands are intended to stand on their own two feet. Other times they are an offshoot of an existing brick and mortar restaurant that fall under the same name, or even a different one. Finally, a virtual brand is a test run for a brick and mortar store.
Benefits Of A Ghost Kitchen
Ghost kitchens shine best in the developmental stage of a restaurant. It lets everybody involved in developing the restaurant have a trial run before opening a physical location. The results of a ghost kitchen trial run can also be used to woo investors by demonstrating the success of a particular chef or style of food.
They also allow a team trying to establish a location to acquire an independent income stream. This enables restaurants to rely less on creditors, which gives them a higher chance of survival.
Finally, ghost kitchens provide an outlet for an established brand that has a large volume of online orders. For certain restaurants, online orders are simply a distraction for their kitchen trying to feed customers in a brick and mortar location. Ghost kitchens handle the online orders to keep the brick and mortar location functioning.