Are Ghost Kitchens the Future of Restaurants in Colorado?
ARTICLE BY 5280 MAGAZINE
Food delivery is a popular and growing industry, projected to reach $467 billion in sales over the next five years by one estimate. And when the coronavirus pandemic struck this spring, state-mandated dine-in restrictions led many restaurants, bars, and breweries to offer more robust takeout and delivery options, which will undoubtedly remain a popular choice for many in the months and years to come.
Enter ghost kitchens, also known as virtual kitchens, a business model that hopes to capitalize on our love of having food brought directly to our doors. Denver is now home to two such ghost kitchens that promise to help restaurants survive in the wake of the pandemic.
But what is a ghost kitchen? It’s a term used to describe a commercial kitchen occupied by a chef or restaurant owner that prepares food intended for pickup and delivery only, without a dine-in storefront. Most of these kitchens, which might house several different vendors, partner directly with third-party delivery apps like GrubHub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats. Think: a delivery-only food hall.
The newest virtual kitchen on the block is ChefReady, founded by Bay Area marketing veterans Nili Malach Poynter and her husband Robert Poynter. The venture is opening this summer in Platt Park with 10 high-tech commercial kitchen stations, ranging in size from 200 to 250 square feet; the owners are currently reviewing applications for delivery-only concepts from local chefs and restaurateurs.
Why would an operator opt to conduct their business in this way? A virtual kitchen includes less overhead than a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant, and the plug-and-play vendor spaces are equipped with all the necessary infrastructure (commercial hoods, sinks, electric and gas hook-ups, and more). The concept aims to lower the barrier to entry for new or would-be restaurateurs, making the profession accessible to a wider range of people. It can also help existing restaurants reach new diners and generate income during off hours. “Restaurants, for many years, have been working on such low margins at their brick-and-mortar locations,” says Malach Poynter, who grew up in Denver. “It gives all these struggling restaurant owners a chance to rebuild themselves. If done right, they can really help save the restaurant industry.”
ChefReady is also offering to help its vendors with marketing, permitting, cleaning, and architectural guidance (chefs can customize their kitchen’s layout). The company plans to streamline the delivery process with software that aggregates the most popular third-party apps; it will also hire food runners to take meals from the kitchens to delivery drivers.
Malach Poynter wants to build community among the participating chefs and will emphasize diversity when selecting the virtual kitchen concepts. “We don’t want them all to be the same,” she says. “We want some that are established restaurants and others that are entrepreneurs—maybe they’ve always wanted to open a restaurant but couldn’t quite afford it because of all the investment required.”