What Exactly Is A Ghost Kitchen Restaurant?

When you are deciding where to eat for dinner, you've got plenty of choices — fast food, sit-down, food trucks, the list goes on. They all give you the experience of going out and getting your food directly from the kitchen that makes it, but there is another option on the dining scene, and its name might be a bit misleading: ghost kitchens. They may have a spooky moniker, but despite the ghostly terminology, they are very real — and not just pop ups that show up every year around Halloween.

A ghost kitchen is a restaurant designed purely with the intent of providing food for delivery and takeout. They have no seating space and don't even look like a restaurant from the outside. Inside, they are fully operational kitchens, but there is no wait staff, no customers waiting for a table, and they work off delivery service apps to take orders and get food into the hands (and stomachs) of hungry customers.

Some ghost kitchens have been known to be popular chains in disguise (like Pasqually's Pizza & Wings, which actually served Chuck E. Cheese pizza), and they have experienced ups and downs in popularity. But while ghost kitchens may be disappearing, they continue to serve a purpose: providing new or existing restaurants a way to launch or expand operations without having to shell out the big bucks required for a full-scale dining operation. With no front-of-the house to staff or keep up, and by operating out of locations with little to no foot traffic, restaurateurs can keep initial investments and operating costs down, thus maximizing profits.

Ghost kitchen restaurants aren't a new phenomenon, but in recent years they have evolved. Food delivery dates back to 1889 when King Umberto of Italy had pizza delivered to his palace. The concept didn't gain widespread popularity until the 1990s though, when restaurants around the world started adding delivery services to get their food to customers who preferred to stay home. But restaurants designed specifically for the purpose of food delivery are a different story. This concept first appeared sometime around 2015, but once the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, eating out in restaurants became difficult for many people around the world, and the concept became a trend. 

Whether you feel food delivery services are worth the extra cost or not, ghost kitchen restaurants (and the food delivery apps that get their food out to hungry customers), offer a great service — both for customers and for restaurant owners. These online-only restaurants suffered a setback once the world opened back up after the worst of the pandemic was behind, but they haven't disappeared completely. By taking advantage of the popularity of food delivery services and the digital ease with which diners can find, order, and receive food, this concept just might be here to stay.