Recently, there has been an emergence of a new type of restaurant concept: cloud kitchens. These are multiple eatery concepts that share a space, rented to distribute meals after the preparation is complete to fulfill delivery orders.
Many have wondered what the differences between ghost and cloud kitchens are, or what sets hidden, stealth, or virtual kitchens apart from smart and delivery kitchens. Essentially, “nothing” is the answer. They all describe more or less the same, novel format that is disrupting traditional restaurant brands today, from fast-casual and quick-service restaurants all the way to casual dining and full-service concepts. Those who want to differentiate themselves may come up with variations of their naming schemes, such as dark kitchens and virtual restaurants.
Ghost Kitchen
Food delivery apps are ushering what is being called the “golden age of delivery,” they are growing exponentially, taking diners away from dine-in establishments, especially in the last half-decade or so. This revolution in food delivery has birthed a new type of food service business, hoping to cash-in on the latest trend named the ghost kitchen—a particularly unique 21st-century food delivery innovation that promises to expand and optimize food delivery at a minimal cost. Many are asking, what does this mean to my food business?
A ghost kitchen is a space that produces virtual food brands without the traditional physical location. These facilities are created for the sole purpose of providing food for virtual brands.
A virtual brand refers to a food concept in which the food id only delivered, without the sit down to eat aspect of foodservice. It is sold online only, usually via delivery apps.
Cloud Kitchen
A cloud kitchen refers to a takeaway food outlet that does not offer facilities to dine-in. Its primary function is to serve as a production unit for meals featuring a meal preparation space. The food is then ordered online, which is referred to in its cloud kitchen name.
The restaurant sector is facing very stiff competition, with declining margins resulting in the closure of many restaurants as they struggle to meet their cost obligations. Observers agree that dine-in clients have significantly decreased recently, with trends shifting towards home delivery. Due to this customer preference shift, home delivery has grown by a large margin forcing restaurateurs to readily admit that home dining has overtaken the restaurant dining experience.
Cloud kitchens maximize per day orders by zeroing in on mass production, thereby lowering packaging and production time and costs. This also includes automating foods’ preliminary production aspects, such as seamless POS integration, further cutting down on time.
Virtual Kitchen
Virtual kitchens are spaces, existing or new, that are leveraged by restaurants to boost their business, explicitly focused on quick-service and food delivery sales. Aspiring chefs and existing restaurants alike are discovering that this novel foodservice model could revolutionize the food business, as well as launch new revenue streams.
Through the setup of virtual kitchens, restaurants can drum up new business that features lower risk, fewer new costs, and flexibility that has not been seen in the restaurant business before.
Smart Kitchen
There is an increasing number of food businesses that are meshing restaurant kitchens and the internet, leading to the creation of smart kitchens. This means hooking up kitchen equipment online, such as fryers, ovens, and refrigerators. All this is to realize savings, which are seen in various ways.
These may include pressure cookers and fryers communicating in sync with cash registers. In what is known as computerized cooking, food can be cooked overnight, with real-time temperatures and other measurements relayed to your phone. This saves labor and time, therefore requiring less staff and less turnaround, meaning more meals can be prepared faster, hopefully leading to increased profits.
How to Choose What is Right for You
Smart kitchens, delivery meals, hidden food facility, stealth cooking, virtual kitchens, ghost kitchens, cloud kitchens—whatever name you want to call it, why should you think of opening one?
They increase your profits. Not only does it decrease sales to costs ratio, but they also save on risk and time as well. These three factors have been known to be new restaurant killers, and ghost kitchens are one of the ways to hit back.
Fresh, new concepts can be tested with little risk and cost. Virtual kitchens allow operators to test out new and exciting menu items, down to particular niches; in a way, traditional cooking would not allow financially. If an idea fails to pick up to expectations, it is easier to try a new one without the cost implications of having to start over fresh.
