Making Virtual Kitchens Chef Ready

The restaurant industry remains rooted in a certain entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone loves the story of two friends sketching out their business plans on the back of a cocktail napkin as part of a late-night conversation for the ages. These days, the industry continues to attract entrepreneurs but in a slightly different manner. Enter Nili Malach Poynter, president of ChefReady, a Colorado-based ghost kitchen operation.

Poynter’s background is not in the restaurant industry. Rather, she spent two decades working as an international lawyer before teaming with her husband Robert Poynter to co-found Vinyl Interactive, a performance-based data science and marketing firm, in San Francisco in 2004. Fast-forward 14 years, and the Poynters could not help but notice the struggles many of their friends in the restaurant business were having. A little research led them to the concept of virtual kitchens, giving birth to ChefReady, which is slated to open by March 2021.

Like so many other trends emerging before the pandemic, COVID-19 really served as an accelerant for virtual restaurants/ghost kitchens. In fact, this segment of the restaurant industry could grow to more than $1 trillion in sales by 2030, according to estimates from market research firm Euromonitor.

Poynter shares her vision for the business, the outlook for virtual kitchens and more.