Aspiring Denver restaurateurs find new ways to sell food to the masses

At a time when eatery-capacity limitations also are limiting opportunities for chefs, several concepts are popping up in Denver that are taking food outside the typical brick-and-mortar box and allowing new avenues for restaurant or restaurant-style expansion.

Ghost kitchens — business models where chefs cook food that is available only for pickup or delivery — are popping up both in commissary-style arrangements and in individual kitchens tucked into the backs of bars. And an entrepreneur is test-marketing what a service that he calls the “Airbnb of restaurants,” in which professional and aspiring chefs open their own dining rooms to guests coming over to eat a home-cooked meal.

The migration out from traditional restaurant settings was underway before the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s accelerated over the past eight months, leaving people to seek out new ways to get high-quality food without cramming elbow-to-elbow inside an eatery. As surveys have shown that more than 80% of diners plan to continue ordering out more even after the spread of Covid-19 is curbed, it’s inspired businesspeople like Nili Poynter, co-owner of the soon-to-open ChefReady ghost kitchen in Denver’s Platt Park neighborhood, to invest.

“A lot of restaurant owners already are really working for the landlord,” Poynter said of the increasingly high rental costs that plagued brick-and-mortar eatery operators even before the virus arrived. “This gives the opportunity to people who have always wanted to open a restaurant but don’t have the funds to do it.”

ChefReady, based on models of similar businesses in Europe and some large coastal American cities, will offer 10 roughly 300-square-foot kitchens to chefs who can sell their wares through third-party delivery platforms like DoorDash as well as for pickup at a front counter. Poynter has filled about half the spaces so far, hoping to open early next year, but is being choosy in order to bring on candidates with solid business plans and a variety of cuisine offerings.