OPINION | Spooky Spooky Kitchens: What Are Ghost Kitchens?
Photo Credit: Combo Kitchen
As the traditional sit-down era of dining experience was halted due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the rise of delivery apps took the world by storm. To some, it was a necessity, with individuals who are immunocompromised needing to stay inside as much as possible. But alongside the development of delivery app use came the digitization of the restaurant experience — and with that, the development of ghost kitchens.
What is a ghost kitchen? To define that now is still a little complicated, as the criteria for what makes one is still pretty vague since the concept is relatively new. Generally, a ghost kitchen is defined as a virtual restaurant whose existence is solely based on online delivery orders and does not provide an in-person sit-down experience.
Ghost kitchens manifest in several forms, the first being what I like to call “ghost kitchen factories,” whose sole purpose is to imitate as many restaurants as possible while all centring around one general location. Ghost kitchens of this nature can have tens of different restaurants of various food types and cultural backgrounds coming out of the same building. The benefit of this type of operation comes from the fact that spaces like these are much more lucrative. They take up less space since ghost kitchens are delivery-focused and the only thing someone needs to run one is a cooking space. There’s no need for booths, seats, or spending time creating a physical brand identity because everything is digital.
Another type of ghost kitchen also includes bigger chains that use different names in order to promote the illusion that the consumer is supporting a smaller restaurant. For example, places like Fixin’s Mac N Chicken, which in reality operates out of Downtown’s Tap N Barrel restaurant. To their credit, Fixin’s website does disclose that it is a product of Tap N Barrel, but the independent name can be misleading if customers think that they’re buying from a standalone restaurant.
Another similar example, albeit a bigger operation in the Vancouver area, is 601 Stamps Landing. While an initial Google search for this address comes up with Mahoney’s Tavern, upon further investigation, several other restaurants come up all operating out of the same location. Items like poké, wings, and burgers are all available under different restaurant names at the same address. However, in contrast to the previous example, there is no distinct disclaimer here that any of these restaurants are associated with one another. While it is obviously not the job of the consumer to necessarily be hyper-vigilant about whether or not a restaurant they’re buying from actually exists (because that standard is ridiculous), it is a bit unfortunate that a byproduct of allowing ghost kitchens to operate ends up being that revenue can be taken away from small businesses that people think they’re supporting instead.
Besides originating from existing restaurants, one origin of ghost kitchens comes from companies such as Pacific Cloud Kitchens (PCK). PCK describes itself as being “one of the fastest growing cooking facilities in Canada” and is a company dedicated to helping either individual businesses or aspiring ghost kitchen owners receive the resources to start their own. An initial glance on the PCK website displays the different packages that one can purchase for easy set-up of a ghost kitchen of your own. PCK does not disclose on their website all of the specific partner restaurants that they have helped start up, so it’s difficult to pinpoint where a lot of ghost kitchens are originating from, especially if you’re not looking for them.
Besides the illusion that these ghost kitchens often try to portray, another issue with ghost kitchens is that they create a lack of consistency in maintaining things like FDA standards, especially when multiple restaurants are operating out of the same place. When you have one huge building impersonating several different restaurants that are all using different ingredients, it is very difficult to track things — for example, tracing back contaminated food to a specific source.
The main takeaway from this piece shouldn’t be that ghost kitchens are ruining the food industry in some twisted and psychopathic way, but simply restating that companies are always trying to find ways to make their processes more efficient without really considering the potential harm to local businesses that can take place. Companies shouldn’t have to shut down ghost kitchen operations, because if the food is good and the customers are happy, they’ve fulfilled their goal. But especially considering how difficult it was for local restaurants to make money during the pandemic, I just think it wasn’t the most ethically just route for ghost kitchens to begin their operation then.