Ghost kitchens: cooking up a response to COVID-19

Ghost kitchens (also referred to as cloud, commissary, dark, delivery, or shadow kitchens) are delivery-only restaurants that, with the
rise of third-party delivery apps services like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats, were already on an accelerated growth trajectory even before the crisis. Their offering to restauranteurs was simple; they provided a vehicle to economize their real estate and labor costs.

The investment community has taken notice.

Technology analytics firm C.B. Insights reports that ghost kitchen funding in 2019 had grown at 12.5 times the rate of the previous year to more than $520 million. CloudKitchens, DoorDash Kitchens, Epic Kitchens, Ghost Kitchens USA, GrubHub, Kitchen United, REEF Kitchens, Salted, Uber Eats, and Virtual Kitchen Co were joined by dozens of independents as they started rolling out locations. Growth plans were already aggressive; Kitchen United alone entered 2020 with plans to open as many as 400 locations over the next few years. Meanwhile, Uber founder Travis Kalanick’s Cloudkitchens raised more than $400 million in funding and has plans to open more than 100 virtual kitchens in the U.S. by 2021.