ghost kitchen
noun phrase

- a commercial facility that prepares and cooks restaurant-style food for delivery directly to customers or to one or more dine-in restaurants

Dictionary dot Com

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ORIGIN

The term "ghost kitchen" was first used in a 2015 NBC New York article. The article was critical of ghost kitchens in New York City, where restaurant owners were caught by an investigative team. Several of these locations were non-retail food processing establishments, which did not have restaurant permits to sell food directly to customers.

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HOW GHOST KITCHENS KEPT RESTAURANTS ALIVE

Ghost kitchens kept many restaurants in business during the pandemic when they would otherwise have to close down by lowering costs and allowing them to work with delivery services.

While the brick-and-mortar restaurants survived, virtual brands profilerated and operated at low cost by using their facilities as ghost kitchens, and food delivery companies prospered because of the boom in demand caused by restricted indoor dining.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of the ghost kitchen industry by five years within three months in 2020. Many restaurants survive due to ghost kitchens and the food delivery options they make available. This spike in growth is predicted to potentially create a $1 trillion industry by 2030.

Source: “How the pandemic accelerated the US ghost kitchen market ‘5 years in 3 months’” - Restaurant Dive

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SYNONYMS

dark kitchen, delivery-only restaurant, cloud kitchen, commissary kitchen, GHOST KITCHEN, shadow kitchen, virtual kitchen

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like:

“Without direct observation of kitchen staff, you can never be 100% sure whether the chef behind your meal works for a GHOST KITCHEN.”

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HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

Paul Smith