15 ms·

How Deliveroo's 'dark kitchens' are catering from car parks

69 points by Hates_ 9y ago

timthelion 9y ago
How dystopian. Its ironic, how as technology improves, things often get worse, because the cheapest, worse, solution becomes too cheep, and reasonable solutions cannot compete. It is no harder for us, today, to install windows in prefab buildings, than it was 10 years ago, but the windowless shipping container has gotten so cheep, that the window becomes a considerable cost. It is like how 30 years ago, most businesses had a telephone line and was easy to contact but today, the idea of having an actual telephone line and secretaries to answer the phone seems "too expensive". It wasn't any cheaper back then though.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I'm curious, do restaurant kitchens usually have exterior windows? My mental image of them (surely mostly from TV) is not of a place with plenty of natural light.
  - jjeaff 9y ago
    I've watched a lot of Food TV and I can't recall ever seeing windows in any professional kitchen.
    - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
      I suppose depends on the country? In Austria employees are generally entitled to natural light through an actual window (must be possible to see outside). Exceptions are only granted to places only open at night and a few other exceptions like stores underground.
  - astura 9y ago
    I worked in an industrial kitchen and there was no windows. There was a loading dock that was closed unless it was in use.
    - contingencies 9y ago
      Strictly speaking loading docks are not supposed to directly front on to food preparation or fresh food storage areas as exhaust fumes can be detected in foods by blind taste panels. (Source: Recent research on facility design for http://infinite-food.com/ http://infinite-food.com/)
- mseebach 9y ago
  > How dystopian You're objecting to an aesthetic, not frankly anything of substance. Very few restaurant kitchens are particularly pleasant places to work, often cramped (because they take up square feet in prime real estate) and very hot. Three staff in a container seems comparatively spacious. Also, when The Guardian struggles to find other fault than temperature and lack of appropriate council permits, that's about as strong a confirmation of adequate working conditions you're likely to find.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Oh, if the work conditions are usually terrible than I guess it's fine.
  - tolien 9y ago
    A related article [1] suggests there's "room for six or seven chefs" which sounds like a rather more cramped setup than three. One wonders, given they don't seem to have bothered with planning permission, whether any consideration's been given to fire safety either. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/08/deliveroo-battles-councils-over-pop-up-takeaway-food-kitchens https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/08/deliveroo-b...
    - timthelion 9y ago
      Are there really fire safety concerns in such small spaces?
      - tolien 9y ago
        Working beside a pizza oven, gas stoves and hot cooking oil? I guess the concern is "if it catches fire, you're dead" but it's still an issue... Edit: small spaces and hot cooking oil, youch - have the restaurants employing these chefs told their insurers that they're doing this?
      - subway 9y ago
        https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bikini-barista-dies-after-fire-at-everett-coffee-stand/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bikini-barista-die... Yes.
- skewart 9y ago
  > How dystopian. What exactly seems dystopian? The author sure was trying hard to dramatize these micro kitchens, describing them in commically over-the-top ways - "dark kitchens" near highway overpasses evokes thoughts of secret interrogation sites. But what actual, tangible aspects of these kitchens seems dystopian or bad? Overall they seem like a great trend. Small-scale infill development can reduce traffic and pollution while also creating a better experience for restaurant customers - more food available with faster delivery times. It does sound like in at least one case planning regulations were not being accurately followed. That's not good. And maybe some kitchen environments weren't very good. Individual restaurants violating labor laws should be punished, and/or regulations should be updated if there are special considerations needed for these micro-kitchens. (The lack of windows though is probably because they need to use wall space for storage and equipment and not a way to save money; it's also not necessarily a big deal in a small building if you can leave the door open.) At the end of the day I'm just not seeing how urban infill micro-kitchens are a terrible dystopian trend.
  - a3n 9y ago
    > what actual, tangible aspects of these kitchens seems dystopian or bad? Car exhaust floating in to the kitchen through the open doors. If you've ever lived in an apartment with a balcony near a freeway, you'll know why I'd never eat food prepared in that environment.
    - skewart 9y ago
      Is it different from a restaurant near a busy road, or by the side of a highway? The micro-kitchen location shown in the photo at the top of the article was near a highway. I doubt all of them are in locations exactly like that.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  Have you worked in a fast food kitchen? Or any restaurant kitchen? It's windowless and greasy and often surrounded by a parking lot close to a busy road. I also had classes as a child in buildings called 'portables' which look pretty similar to these things, except with windows and a normal classroom interior.
spunker540 9y ago
I'm not surprised that as food delivery services gain popularity, restauranteurs are starting to realize that you can save a lot of money on rent and facilities, if you focus on a delivery-only model. Here in the US it's still mostly traditional restaurants doing delivery through seamless, grubhub, uber eats etc. but I'm sure this model is right around the corner. Out of curiosity a while ago I tried looking into what it takes to be a seamless vendor and it seemed like they were mostly expecting established brick and mortar restaurants to sign up, rather than enterprising new ventures that exclusively sell through them.
- mseebach 9y ago
  Online delivery supermarkets have made the same realisation (so-called dark stores), but a few years earlier.
- majormajor 9y ago
  Feels like New York, where space has long been at an extreme premium, figured this out a long time ago with take out and delivery joints.
- tdeck 9y ago
  Counterpoint: all the delivery services around me that prepared their own food (spoonrocket, bento, spring) seem to have gone out of business. Munchery is still around but I hear it's gone way downhill, and they don't deliver hot food anyway.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  When I was living in Lindon I regularly ordered from hungryhouse. On my way home from work I always walked past a sleezy place which sells asian food, had never any people in and the house looked really badly maintained. Only after a few orders and walking past this place I realize I ordered from them a few times. After seeing the place and making the connection I never ordered again from there. It definitely made me realize that I pick food differently for delivery than I do eating out.
- gaadd33 9y ago
  There's a few places that specialize in that sort of thing: https://www.fastcompany.com/3064075/hold-the-storefront-how-delivery-only-ghost-restaurants-are-changing-take-out https://www.fastcompany.com/3064075/hold-the-storefront-how-...
thisisit 9y ago
This making me a bit nauseous. Two things come to mind. Can Deliveroo and the restaurants do things like this? Restaurants need to go through a food safety agency before they open followed by regular checks. What kind of checks or regulatory frames do these "Rooboxes" fall in? Is it another case of ignorance of the law in name of tech disruption? The whole "fake it till you make it". I maybe wrong but isn't this kind of lying to the customers? While people are expecting "Takeaway Delivery from Premium Restaurants", as Deliveroo puts it, what they are getting is something from a place which isn't really the restaurant. Sure people have been trained but is it really the same?
- zootboy 9y ago
  From the article: > Dan Warne, Deliveroo’s UK and Ireland managing director, admits the company did not move quickly enough to speak to the council and residents in Southwark, but says Roobox kitchens are clean, hygienic and checked by the Food Standards Agency.
  - tolien 9y ago
    To be fair, "checked by the FSA" isn't worth much - they also missed the Two Sisters chicken relabelling "scandal" [1] (not that they could reasonably be expected to observe that they met standards 24/7 anyway). 1: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/29/food-regulator-chicken-supplier-food-safety-dates-2-sisters-food-group https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/29/food-regula...
  - DanBC 9y ago
    For food safety from restaurants I think of the "scores on the doors" scheme. FSA doesn't do the checking for that scheme. The local authority do the checks. The FSA hold the results. http://ratings.food.gov.uk/ http://ratings.food.gov.uk/ I can't find results for any of the rooboxes, but maybe I'm not searching properly. I really hope they're talking about this scheme, and that all the rooboxes have been checked.
    - thisisit 9y ago
frakkingcylons 9y ago
So they're cooking food in a metal box in a parking lot. I don't see the issue. People seem to like food trucks just fine and the only difference is wheels and an engine.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > and the only difference is wheels and an engine. and planning permission, and hygiene inspection.
  - djrogers 9y ago
    Food trucks don't get 'planning permission' and these boxes do get food safety inspections, so again - doesn't seem any worse to me.
  - frakkingcylons 9y ago
    Hygiene inspection is still being carried out. From the article: “Dan Warne, Deliveroo’s UK and Ireland managing director, admits the company did not move quickly enough to speak to the council and residents in Southwark, but says Roobox kitchens are clean, hygienic and checked by the Food Standards Agency.”
    - DanBC 9y ago
      FSA don't do food safety checks in premises. Local authorities do the checks. Does deliveroo not understand the regulatory framework? Is this just lazy reporting?
- sorokod 9y ago
  That is fine as long as people know that the food they ordered was cooked in a parking lot or similar and not in an upscale restaurant.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  I think the issue is the general race to the bottom in working conditions. People don't necessarily want to support a business that keeps the staff in too hot / cold metal boxes all evening. It's certainly not what they expect from a nice restaurant.
cm2187 9y ago
I made the mistake to order from one of those, the food was just disgusting. There are 5 or 6 fake restaurants like those appearing in the list, all with the same post code. It taught me the habit of checking the postcode and google street view before ordering from any new restaurant on Deliveroo.
- icebraining 9y ago
  According to the Daily Mail (which, granted...) those listings say they're "Deliveroo Editions". I couldn't find an example on the site, though.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    I can still see them, here is two: https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/dirty-bones-blackwall https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/dirty-bones-bl... https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/la-pistola https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/la-pistola They are now flagged as "editions" but they weren't when I last tried one.
barrkel 9y ago
The dark kitchen setup isn't just for delivery; I was wandering down a lane alongside one of London's many railways one evening and got chatting to a chap that was having a smoke. A number of the archways housed separate little kitchens, some of them cooking for delivery, but others preparing food that would later be composed at high end restaurants. It sounded like things that take a lot of preparation or cooking are sometimes done centrally and shipped out in time for the main evening meals.
- Balgair 9y ago
  My old super in LA did this for a while too, before becoming a super. Much of the high-end 'catering' is done in apartments all over LA. I liked him a lot, but never asked about what the health inspector thought of the 3 cats.
johnchristopher 9y ago
Straight out from `Virtual Light`.
moomin 9y ago
I live near Il Mirto (mentioned in the article). a) It’s in East Dulwich, not Dulwich b) it does Italian Italian food, not British or American Italian food c) its branding and presentation leaves something to be desired. I can see why Deliveroo constitutes a problem for them: the big brands and solid presentation are going to win.
fragmede 9y ago
This is merely the logical extension of app-centralization of food delivery - if Deliveroo is the brand that I'm buying from, and not an actual Indian/Thai/whatever restaurant with a name I trust and recognize, then Deliveroo might as well operate the kitchen part as well. The interesting part, to me, is going to be is if the other half of the restaurant experience - the dining area manages to become a thing - sometimes I want takeout so I can eat in the comfort of my own home, but sometimes I actually want to eat out. Is there a new business model enabled by this, for a fancy restaurant with no kitchen? Order whatever food you wanted to the place, they would take it, plate it as only a fancy restaurant can do, and then serve it to you with the appropriate flourishes, on a table with cloth tablecloth and fancy silverware. Finally, they would take away the dishes (and clean them), but without the cheapness of eating out of cardboard boxes.
- psadri 9y ago
  From what I have heard from restaurateur friends - it's very difficult to have high quality food that was not prepared immediately before serving. So it is not as simple as plating it.
philfrasty 9y ago
I want to better understand the value-proposition / niche of services like Deliveroo compared to classical online food-delivery companies. If I wanted to order food online for the last 10 years I could simply order through various services that connected me to local restaurants. - First question: why is there a niche for services like Deliveroo at all? If a local restaurant does not offer delivery there are hundreds of other restaurants that do. I am completely indifferent in choosing one. - Second question: it seems the value of Deliveroo is in (?) building the infrastructure to deliver the food rather than restaurants themselves. This seems much easier to do for existing platforms that already have signed up all the local restaurants and build this on top to aggregate all restaurants. What is the scenario here? $900 Mio. [1] in funding sure is a statement. [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deliveroo https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deliveroo
- analog31 9y ago
  In my view, the problem is that "local restaurants" have to pay very high rent if they want to be close enough to their customers to support delivery. It's the same problem if you want to be a janitor -- it costs too much to live near where you work. This in turn limits Deliveroo's business, if there are not enough restaurants within delivery distance of a potential customer base. So perhaps the problem statement is that janitors are willing to commute long distances, but hot food isn't.
- bastawhiz 9y ago
  To answer your first question: it's a better experience. Local restaurants have terrible websites with no photos and sketchy payment forms. Their delivery usually involves having cash for a tip. If there's a problem with your order, it's unlikely it'll be resolved. With services like Deliveroo and others, your payment information is managed by a central third party, delivery quality is generally quite good, you get ETAs for your food, there's real customer support, the app/site is modern and easy to use with pictures and search, and you never need to keep cash on hand. If every local restaurant had a system as effective as Domino's, I could see these services being in trouble. But that will almost certainly never be the case.
devdad 9y ago
As a side note; what does a service such as Deliveroo, Uber Food, Foodora, Wolt etc charge the restaurant per delivery?
- noddy1 9y ago
  Uber eats charges ~35% to restaurants in australia.
noddy1 9y ago
It seems silly to say that delivery food must be prepared in the back of a restaurant, on prime real estate, in the midst of sit-down diners. People talked about the possibility of uber-for-food or "food-sharing", where the lady next door cooks a bunch of food and then all the neighbors get some.. I think this delivery-only kitchen model will be the reality of uber for food - hyper-local low cost kitchens which may be boxes in car parks, or may be operating out of cafes that don't normally open for dinner, or even out of suburban garages (with signoff from local health authorities). Every suburb has a fairly standard, reasonable quality thai, chinese, pizza, indian and burger places. Lower price delivery incentivized users to go local, but if ratings are not great for the local option then they will get a more distant option for a slightly increased delivery price, pushing the local option to maintain quality. Retail/hospitality real estate doesn't seem to have great prospects at this point. When you no longer need street frontage but rather just a back alley spot to sell food, and when amazon has dominated all street facing retail, it will be interested to see what happens to urban retail hubs.
gaius 9y ago
Deliveroo in general seems to have a deliberate strategy of co-opting public spaces. You will often see their riders between jobs "parked" in a public square, for example. Good exposure for the brand perhaps, but normal companies don't do this - they have a depot. You never see a bunch of Fedex guys just "hanging out" in all their brand livery. As a taxpayer I wonder why I am subsidising their lack of proper facilities.
ukoki 9y ago
The phrase "dark kitchen" seems like an attempt to make this sound more illicit or unhygienic than it actually is. It's just a restaurant without the sitting part — I think "delivery-only restaurant" would be a fairer term.

69 points by Hates_ 9y ago

How dystopian. Its ironic, how as technology improves, things often get worse, because the cheapest, worse, solution becomes too cheep, and reasonable solutions cannot compete. It is no harder for us, today, to install windows in prefab buildings, than it was 10 years ago, but the windowless shipping container has gotten so cheep, that the window becomes a considerable cost. It is like how 30 years ago, most businesses had a telephone line and was easy to contact but today, the idea of having an actual telephone line and secretaries to answer the phone seems "too expensive". It wasn't any cheaper back then though.

icebraining 9y ago
I'm curious, do restaurant kitchens usually have exterior windows? My mental image of them (surely mostly from TV) is not of a place with plenty of natural light.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  I've watched a lot of Food TV and I can't recall ever seeing windows in any professional kitchen.
  - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
    I suppose depends on the country? In Austria employees are generally entitled to natural light through an actual window (must be possible to see outside). Exceptions are only granted to places only open at night and a few other exceptions like stores underground.
- astura 9y ago
  I worked in an industrial kitchen and there was no windows. There was a loading dock that was closed unless it was in use.
  - contingencies 9y ago
    Strictly speaking loading docks are not supposed to directly front on to food preparation or fresh food storage areas as exhaust fumes can be detected in foods by blind taste panels. (Source: Recent research on facility design for http://infinite-food.com/ http://infinite-food.com/)
mseebach 9y ago
> How dystopian You're objecting to an aesthetic, not frankly anything of substance. Very few restaurant kitchens are particularly pleasant places to work, often cramped (because they take up square feet in prime real estate) and very hot. Three staff in a container seems comparatively spacious. Also, when The Guardian struggles to find other fault than temperature and lack of appropriate council permits, that's about as strong a confirmation of adequate working conditions you're likely to find.
- timthelion 9y ago
  Oh, if the work conditions are usually terrible than I guess it's fine.
- tolien 9y ago
  A related article [1] suggests there's "room for six or seven chefs" which sounds like a rather more cramped setup than three. One wonders, given they don't seem to have bothered with planning permission, whether any consideration's been given to fire safety either. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/08/deliveroo-battles-councils-over-pop-up-takeaway-food-kitchens https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/08/deliveroo-b...
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Are there really fire safety concerns in such small spaces?
    - tolien 9y ago
      Working beside a pizza oven, gas stoves and hot cooking oil? I guess the concern is "if it catches fire, you're dead" but it's still an issue... Edit: small spaces and hot cooking oil, youch - have the restaurants employing these chefs told their insurers that they're doing this?
    - subway 9y ago
      https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bikini-barista-dies-after-fire-at-everett-coffee-stand/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bikini-barista-die... Yes.
skewart 9y ago
> How dystopian. What exactly seems dystopian? The author sure was trying hard to dramatize these micro kitchens, describing them in commically over-the-top ways - "dark kitchens" near highway overpasses evokes thoughts of secret interrogation sites. But what actual, tangible aspects of these kitchens seems dystopian or bad? Overall they seem like a great trend. Small-scale infill development can reduce traffic and pollution while also creating a better experience for restaurant customers - more food available with faster delivery times. It does sound like in at least one case planning regulations were not being accurately followed. That's not good. And maybe some kitchen environments weren't very good. Individual restaurants violating labor laws should be punished, and/or regulations should be updated if there are special considerations needed for these micro-kitchens. (The lack of windows though is probably because they need to use wall space for storage and equipment and not a way to save money; it's also not necessarily a big deal in a small building if you can leave the door open.) At the end of the day I'm just not seeing how urban infill micro-kitchens are a terrible dystopian trend.
- a3n 9y ago
  > what actual, tangible aspects of these kitchens seems dystopian or bad? Car exhaust floating in to the kitchen through the open doors. If you've ever lived in an apartment with a balcony near a freeway, you'll know why I'd never eat food prepared in that environment.
  - skewart 9y ago
    Is it different from a restaurant near a busy road, or by the side of a highway? The micro-kitchen location shown in the photo at the top of the article was near a highway. I doubt all of them are in locations exactly like that.
woolvalley 9y ago
Have you worked in a fast food kitchen? Or any restaurant kitchen? It's windowless and greasy and often surrounded by a parking lot close to a busy road. I also had classes as a child in buildings called 'portables' which look pretty similar to these things, except with windows and a normal classroom interior.

spunker540 9y ago

I'm not surprised that as food delivery services gain popularity, restauranteurs are starting to realize that you can save a lot of money on rent and facilities, if you focus on a delivery-only model. Here in the US it's still mostly traditional restaurants doing delivery through seamless, grubhub, uber eats etc. but I'm sure this model is right around the corner. Out of curiosity a while ago I tried looking into what it takes to be a seamless vendor and it seemed like they were mostly expecting established brick and mortar restaurants to sign up, rather than enterprising new ventures that exclusively sell through them.

mseebach 9y ago
Online delivery supermarkets have made the same realisation (so-called dark stores), but a few years earlier.
majormajor 9y ago
Feels like New York, where space has long been at an extreme premium, figured this out a long time ago with take out and delivery joints.
tdeck 9y ago
Counterpoint: all the delivery services around me that prepared their own food (spoonrocket, bento, spring) seem to have gone out of business. Munchery is still around but I hear it's gone way downhill, and they don't deliver hot food anyway.
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
When I was living in Lindon I regularly ordered from hungryhouse. On my way home from work I always walked past a sleezy place which sells asian food, had never any people in and the house looked really badly maintained. Only after a few orders and walking past this place I realize I ordered from them a few times. After seeing the place and making the connection I never ordered again from there. It definitely made me realize that I pick food differently for delivery than I do eating out.
gaadd33 9y ago
There's a few places that specialize in that sort of thing: https://www.fastcompany.com/3064075/hold-the-storefront-how-delivery-only-ghost-restaurants-are-changing-take-out https://www.fastcompany.com/3064075/hold-the-storefront-how-...

thisisit 9y ago

This making me a bit nauseous. Two things come to mind. Can Deliveroo and the restaurants do things like this? Restaurants need to go through a food safety agency before they open followed by regular checks. What kind of checks or regulatory frames do these "Rooboxes" fall in? Is it another case of ignorance of the law in name of tech disruption? The whole "fake it till you make it". I maybe wrong but isn't this kind of lying to the customers? While people are expecting "Takeaway Delivery from Premium Restaurants", as Deliveroo puts it, what they are getting is something from a place which isn't really the restaurant. Sure people have been trained but is it really the same?

zootboy 9y ago
From the article: > Dan Warne, Deliveroo’s UK and Ireland managing director, admits the company did not move quickly enough to speak to the council and residents in Southwark, but says Roobox kitchens are clean, hygienic and checked by the Food Standards Agency.
- tolien 9y ago
  To be fair, "checked by the FSA" isn't worth much - they also missed the Two Sisters chicken relabelling "scandal" [1] (not that they could reasonably be expected to observe that they met standards 24/7 anyway). 1: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/29/food-regulator-chicken-supplier-food-safety-dates-2-sisters-food-group https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/29/food-regula...
- DanBC 9y ago
  For food safety from restaurants I think of the "scores on the doors" scheme. FSA doesn't do the checking for that scheme. The local authority do the checks. The FSA hold the results. http://ratings.food.gov.uk/ http://ratings.food.gov.uk/ I can't find results for any of the rooboxes, but maybe I'm not searching properly. I really hope they're talking about this scheme, and that all the rooboxes have been checked.
  - thisisit 9y ago

frakkingcylons 9y ago

So they're cooking food in a metal box in a parking lot. I don't see the issue. People seem to like food trucks just fine and the only difference is wheels and an engine.

DanBC 9y ago
> and the only difference is wheels and an engine. and planning permission, and hygiene inspection.
- djrogers 9y ago
  Food trucks don't get 'planning permission' and these boxes do get food safety inspections, so again - doesn't seem any worse to me.
- frakkingcylons 9y ago
  Hygiene inspection is still being carried out. From the article: “Dan Warne, Deliveroo’s UK and Ireland managing director, admits the company did not move quickly enough to speak to the council and residents in Southwark, but says Roobox kitchens are clean, hygienic and checked by the Food Standards Agency.”
  - DanBC 9y ago
    FSA don't do food safety checks in premises. Local authorities do the checks. Does deliveroo not understand the regulatory framework? Is this just lazy reporting?
sorokod 9y ago
That is fine as long as people know that the food they ordered was cooked in a parking lot or similar and not in an upscale restaurant.
Symbiote 9y ago
I think the issue is the general race to the bottom in working conditions. People don't necessarily want to support a business that keeps the staff in too hot / cold metal boxes all evening. It's certainly not what they expect from a nice restaurant.

cm2187 9y ago

I made the mistake to order from one of those, the food was just disgusting. There are 5 or 6 fake restaurants like those appearing in the list, all with the same post code. It taught me the habit of checking the postcode and google street view before ordering from any new restaurant on Deliveroo.

icebraining 9y ago
According to the Daily Mail (which, granted...) those listings say they're "Deliveroo Editions". I couldn't find an example on the site, though.
- cm2187 9y ago
  I can still see them, here is two: https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/dirty-bones-blackwall https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/dirty-bones-bl... https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/la-pistola https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/blackwall/la-pistola They are now flagged as "editions" but they weren't when I last tried one.

barrkel 9y ago

The dark kitchen setup isn't just for delivery; I was wandering down a lane alongside one of London's many railways one evening and got chatting to a chap that was having a smoke. A number of the archways housed separate little kitchens, some of them cooking for delivery, but others preparing food that would later be composed at high end restaurants. It sounded like things that take a lot of preparation or cooking are sometimes done centrally and shipped out in time for the main evening meals.

Balgair 9y ago
My old super in LA did this for a while too, before becoming a super. Much of the high-end 'catering' is done in apartments all over LA. I liked him a lot, but never asked about what the health inspector thought of the 3 cats.

johnchristopher 9y ago

Straight out from `Virtual Light`.

moomin 9y ago

I live near Il Mirto (mentioned in the article). a) It’s in East Dulwich, not Dulwich b) it does Italian Italian food, not British or American Italian food c) its branding and presentation leaves something to be desired. I can see why Deliveroo constitutes a problem for them: the big brands and solid presentation are going to win.

fragmede 9y ago

This is merely the logical extension of app-centralization of food delivery - if Deliveroo is the brand that I'm buying from, and not an actual Indian/Thai/whatever restaurant with a name I trust and recognize, then Deliveroo might as well operate the kitchen part as well. The interesting part, to me, is going to be is if the other half of the restaurant experience - the dining area manages to become a thing - sometimes I want takeout so I can eat in the comfort of my own home, but sometimes I actually want to eat out. Is there a new business model enabled by this, for a fancy restaurant with no kitchen? Order whatever food you wanted to the place, they would take it, plate it as only a fancy restaurant can do, and then serve it to you with the appropriate flourishes, on a table with cloth tablecloth and fancy silverware. Finally, they would take away the dishes (and clean them), but without the cheapness of eating out of cardboard boxes.

psadri 9y ago
From what I have heard from restaurateur friends - it's very difficult to have high quality food that was not prepared immediately before serving. So it is not as simple as plating it.

philfrasty 9y ago

I want to better understand the value-proposition / niche of services like Deliveroo compared to classical online food-delivery companies. If I wanted to order food online for the last 10 years I could simply order through various services that connected me to local restaurants. - First question: why is there a niche for services like Deliveroo at all? If a local restaurant does not offer delivery there are hundreds of other restaurants that do. I am completely indifferent in choosing one. - Second question: it seems the value of Deliveroo is in (?) building the infrastructure to deliver the food rather than restaurants themselves. This seems much easier to do for existing platforms that already have signed up all the local restaurants and build this on top to aggregate all restaurants. What is the scenario here? $900 Mio. [1] in funding sure is a statement. [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deliveroo https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deliveroo

analog31 9y ago
In my view, the problem is that "local restaurants" have to pay very high rent if they want to be close enough to their customers to support delivery. It's the same problem if you want to be a janitor -- it costs too much to live near where you work. This in turn limits Deliveroo's business, if there are not enough restaurants within delivery distance of a potential customer base. So perhaps the problem statement is that janitors are willing to commute long distances, but hot food isn't.
bastawhiz 9y ago
To answer your first question: it's a better experience. Local restaurants have terrible websites with no photos and sketchy payment forms. Their delivery usually involves having cash for a tip. If there's a problem with your order, it's unlikely it'll be resolved. With services like Deliveroo and others, your payment information is managed by a central third party, delivery quality is generally quite good, you get ETAs for your food, there's real customer support, the app/site is modern and easy to use with pictures and search, and you never need to keep cash on hand. If every local restaurant had a system as effective as Domino's, I could see these services being in trouble. But that will almost certainly never be the case.

devdad 9y ago

As a side note; what does a service such as Deliveroo, Uber Food, Foodora, Wolt etc charge the restaurant per delivery?

noddy1 9y ago
Uber eats charges ~35% to restaurants in australia.

noddy1 9y ago

It seems silly to say that delivery food must be prepared in the back of a restaurant, on prime real estate, in the midst of sit-down diners. People talked about the possibility of uber-for-food or "food-sharing", where the lady next door cooks a bunch of food and then all the neighbors get some.. I think this delivery-only kitchen model will be the reality of uber for food - hyper-local low cost kitchens which may be boxes in car parks, or may be operating out of cafes that don't normally open for dinner, or even out of suburban garages (with signoff from local health authorities). Every suburb has a fairly standard, reasonable quality thai, chinese, pizza, indian and burger places. Lower price delivery incentivized users to go local, but if ratings are not great for the local option then they will get a more distant option for a slightly increased delivery price, pushing the local option to maintain quality. Retail/hospitality real estate doesn't seem to have great prospects at this point. When you no longer need street frontage but rather just a back alley spot to sell food, and when amazon has dominated all street facing retail, it will be interested to see what happens to urban retail hubs.

gaius 9y ago

Deliveroo in general seems to have a deliberate strategy of co-opting public spaces. You will often see their riders between jobs "parked" in a public square, for example. Good exposure for the brand perhaps, but normal companies don't do this - they have a depot. You never see a bunch of Fedex guys just "hanging out" in all their brand livery. As a taxpayer I wonder why I am subsidising their lack of proper facilities.

ukoki 9y ago

The phrase "dark kitchen" seems like an attempt to make this sound more illicit or unhygienic than it actually is. It's just a restaurant without the sitting part — I think "delivery-only restaurant" would be a fairer term.