Ghost kitchens

Published in El Pais, 13 October 2020.

It has been no secret that this pandemic has been hell on the restaurant business as they have been forced to shut down and only offer delivery or take out while still having to pay rent on expensive storefront property. Some places have slowly started to allow them to open up at a reduced capacity but there will likely be growing pain for a while and unfortunately many will not survive the end of the pandemic. Now may not be the best time to open up a traditional restaurant but many are getting creative, opening up what is called a “ghost kitchen”.

A ghost kitchen is an industrial kitchen that meets all public health standards that are required to operate a restaurant, except without a dining area or even a proper storefront. These “restaurants” focus their entire business model on delivery, relying on already existing delivery services like Uber Eats to reach out to their customers. This way they save on overhead by not having a dining area, one that would be empty right now anyways, and could even save money by opening up on a location that is not on a busy street and without a storefront. This savings can make the business much more viable even with the high delivery fees charged.

Entrepreneurs have flirted with the idea before, but this pandemic has many getting on board as right now all restraunts are essentially ghost kitchens. It will also be interesting to see if this can be adapted to other industries as well. This pandemic has been catastrophic, but we have certainly seen some creativity come out of it as well.