This article was guest written by Chef Liam.
The restaurant world was turned upside down and inside out during ‘peak pandemic’. During this period of mass disruption, the dark kitchen (or ghost kitchen) kept a lot of businesses afloat when they couldn’t have people at tables.
There is no denying the numbers, ghost kitchens are on the rise. 51% of restaurateurs have shifted to ghost or virtual kitchens in the U.S. 1 We see similar disruption in Australia and New Zealand.
In part one of this two-article series, (read it here) we explored how to set up a ghost kitchen. In this article, we will explore the upsides and downsides of shifting from bricks and mortar to ones and zeroes.
But, as every physics student knows, we can’t have an upside with a downside. These downsides are, in and of themselves, upsides, as they allow owners to pivot their traditional restaurant behaviour.
Where are ghost kitchens heading from here?
Matt Newberg, founder of HNGRY.tv predicts that there will only be two types of dining experiences in the future:
(1) those on a special occasion; and
(2) those had out of convenience, which will be dominated by delivery. 2
We’ll see, the dark kitchen is still a relatively new trend, and while customers love the novel, they often yearn to return to what they know.
References: