The Food Connector’s Post

Very interesting development here. A company called Picnic, which appears to be part of the CloudKitchens/Otter family, has begun offering batched restaurant deliveries to office buildings and apartments in LA. Tenants can order from 100+ restaurants and the meals are dropped off together at designated pickup shelves. Notably, Picnic does not charge a delivery fee and says there's no need to tip. Customers pay the regular restaurant menu price and that's it. I'm guessing these orders are coming out of CloudKitchens ghost kitchens. Unclear whether they're being delivered by 3PDs or Picnic employees. Either way, it seems like a smart use of the ghost kitchen format. Customers get selection and convenience, and large orders help offset delivery costs. If Picnic can get enough buildings in the network, this could be disruptive. H/t to Michael Wolf at The Spoon for first making the connection. #restaurants #delivery #ghostkitchens #cloudkitchens https://lnkd.in/gaWjikFq

Ghost kitchens - of restaurants’ past? 👻 🍴 Once a pandemic-era lifeline for the restaurant industry, #GhostKitchens now face dwindling support from investors and customers. Ghost kitchens were initially praised as an economical entry to the food industry, an opportunity to expand take out options and an outlet for large corporations to test new menu items after they capitalized on the closures of 70,000 post-pandemic restaurants. The recent shift away from ghost kitchens is marked by a consumer preference for food from publicly accessible, physical locations, with 70% of diners emphasizing this importance after some consumers felt “deceived” when unable to locate their favorite take out spot on a map. This is a stark departure from earlier predictions that ghost kitchens would constitute over 20% of the restaurant industry by 2025. Notably, there are additional challenges with the unique structure of the ghost kitchen business, with local health departments face challenges in regulating these kitchens due to their primarily online presence and ability to operate under different names. Learn more in this Yahoo News article, https://yhoo.it/3RyShss

Ghost kitchens, the commercial kitchens with no dine-in option that became pandemic-era darlings, are beginning to fail, raising questions about whether the industry’s projected boom was a collective CRE hallucination. Kitchen United, a startup that ran delivery-only restaurants and raised $175M in funding, announced last week it would sell or close all of its locations. The company was backed by Kroger and ran its operations from inside the grocer’s stores, at malls and from inside chain restaurants, sharing cooking space.Ghost kitchens were once predicted to make up more than 20% of the restaurant industry by 2025. An even more bullish 2021 projection estimated ghost kitchens could be a $1T industry by 2030. Ghost kitchens fulfill online orders from delivery-service apps like Grubhub and Uber Eats, and several dozen menus can come from the same kitchen. Customers are frequently unaware they are ordering from a restaurant without its own physical location. The distinction is important for consumers, who prefer ordering from brick-and-mortar restaurants. Seventy percent of diners said it is important for their food to come from a publicly accessible, physical location. #dining #cre #restaurants #commercialrealestate

From boom to bust. This article highlights the rise and fall of Ghost Kitchens. Turns out that the act of dining includes the physical in-person experience we all know and love. 11 years ago in our book, Appetite for Acquisition, I wrote, "Restaurants are the fabric of our culture. The neighborhood restaurant is where we go on our first date, celebrate a promotion, and gather the family to announce our engagement." It's STILL true today. I went on to write, "In a high-tech world (imagine BACK THEN), the restaurant is a high-touch world where we still interact with one another." ✅ Ghost kitchens, supported by significant dollars, celebrity chefs, and restaurant chains, were forecast to be over 20% of the restaurant industry by 2025. Oops - not happening. ✅ Pandemic driven, ghost kitchens, essentially delivery-only setups with no physical dine-in spaces, expanded while traditional dining closed during the pandemic. The consumer was not cooking. ✅ Customer confusion ensued along with disillusioned customers when the local restaurant they thought they were supporting turned out to be a large chain. Not to mention, Uber eats and DoorDash started weeding out duplicates and taking down online digital restaurants operating under separate names with the same menu. ✅ The market shifted and demand for ghost kitchens diminished as we returned to physical dining. Challenges include high delivery fees, lack of transparency, and regulatory difficulties. ✅ Major players in the ghost kitchen market, including The Wendy's Company and Applebee's Neighborhood Grill + Bar are scaling back or shutting down their ghost kitchen operations. The economic model of ghost kitchens, reliant on third-party delivery services and facing operational challenges is not the wonder kid it was predicted to be. In a post-pandemic world, the consumer is still seeking that "high-touch" dining experience I wrote about over a decade ago. #restaurant #restaurants #restaurantindustry #WeSellRestaurants

Here's a great piece from the team Fast Casual discussing the the hot topic of kitchen automation. It's worth a read for any operator who is considering adding automation to their operation. #restaurants #automation

Ever wondered about the future of the food industry? 🍽️ Ghost kitchens could be a game changer. Unlike traditional commercial kitchens, these operations are solely focused on takeout and delivery. They're not designed for walk-in customers or sit-down meals. This new model could revolutionize the way we eat, especially in a post-pandemic world. But what does this mean for the dining experience we've grown to cherish? Let's discuss.

Even though some of the initial hype for ghost kitchens has died down, they're still majorly disrupting the restaurant industry and driving better operational efficiency. Really interesting to hear how local restaurants in Columbus, Ohio have benefitted from utilizing ghost kitchens, and how they have actually served communities that live in food deserts. Embracing ghost kitchens can be especially helpful for restaurants that want to make a name for themselves through third-party delivery services, like DoorDash or Uber Eats. #GhostKitchens #RestaurantTech #RestaurantTrends

Another pandemic-era concept has also now run its course. Ghost kitchens. While this concept's overall demand for logistics space was relatively small, it was viewed as a growth opportunity. However, consumers prefer ordering from brick-and-mortar restaurants, the National Restaurant Association found in a survey this year, with 70% of diners saying it’s important for their food to come from a publicly accessible, physical location. The business side of running a ghost kitchen has also been challenging. Ghost kitchens rely on third-party delivery companies to deliver orders. Third-party providers charge fees, which can be as high as 30%. Local health departments have struggled to inspect and regulate ghost kitchens, too. So restaurants have shut down their ghost kitchens, and funding for the concept has dried up. Wendy’s abandoned its ghost kitchen plans earlier this year, Applebee’s folded up Cosmic Wings, and Kalanick’s CloudKitchens laid off its staff this fall. Butler Hospitality, which operated ghost kitchens for the hotel industry, also shut down.

How to 400x your digital order volume by The Wendy's Company It starts from the restaurant design but goes way beyond that… - New pickup areas for delivery drivers designed around speed of access. - Online order shelving that makes picking up orders easier + a walkup window outside next to parking spaces for delivery drivers. - Inside there’s still a counter where customers can speak to an actual human. But it’s flanked by kiosks. - Behind the counter they’re improving food storage and prep. A dual-sided galley brings equipment closer together and reduces the movement required to get food out the door. This digital-first approach means one thing… These locations are small…like built on a quarter acre small Expect another 200 of these concepts to open next year. Would you prefer to order here vs. a traditional restaurant? Check out the full article in Fast Company https://lnkd.in/e_EATigx #restaurants #restauranttech

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