Hustle of the Week: Food Delivery Ghost Kitchens

In recent years, the food industry has seen a drastic change with the emergence of food delivery services such as UberEats, Grubhub, DoorDash etc. These apps are disrupting the traditional “eating out” business model by allowing you to eat the same delicious food in the comfort of your home. In this blog, we will discuss how this allowed the rise of private kitchens and how they’re taking over the industry.

Let's start by diving into the financial side of things. Traditional restaurants often run into many costs such as rent, staff, utilities, and maintenance. Private kitchens, on the other hand, may share a few costs such as utilities and maintenance, but it wouldn't be nearly as much as a restaurant with an actual storefront catering to possibly hundreds of customers daily.

By operating in remote kitchen spaces, private kitchen restaurants can focus solely on food and efficiency. They can pump out as many orders as possible without the worry of the customer experience or entertainment. This also expands overall profit margins. The decrease in costs allows private kitchens to be more competitive when it comes to pricing.

When did food delivery really boom? People have been ordering for decades, but there was always the option to eat out or have food delivered. In 2020, however, the coronavirus lockdowns caused almost all non-essential stores to shut down, allowing only some restaurants to deliver food. This created a big shift in the eating out mentality, as people found out that they could get the same delicious meals while keeping their privacy and convenience. While some missed the social aspect, the convenience, comfort, and privacy normalized food delivery for a lot of people.

While private kitchens and food delivery services taking off is great from a financial point of view, it is important to understand that some experts believe it can be harmful to the mental health of consistent users. Negatives include weight gain, food addiction, and depression. This all adds up, as we understand that many people are choosing food delivery over eating out because they prefer to stay within their own home and privacy; however, many of the underlying reasons for why people prefer to eat at home alone are concerning. It's important to keep in mind that, even if something is beneficial monetarily, it is never worth going against your values in order to make it happen.

To wrap up, private kitchens and DoorDash businesses are an interesting concept but we cannot stress enough how important it is to have experience in something before throwing a heap load of cash at it - unless you’re okay with taking the loss in $ to learn. We hope that we’ve been able to lay out all the ins and outs of the food industry and look forward to catching you on the next version of Slash’s “Hustle of The Week”.

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