6 ms·

The next big restaurant chain may not own any kitchens

64 points by briatx 8y ago

gamechangr 8y ago
duplicate - look at "past".
- dang 8y ago
  On HN it isn't a duplicate if there haven't been many reposts and the previous posts didn't get significant attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
jaegerpicker 8y ago
It's an interesting field that could potentially be huge. I'm working for a startup in that space, so maybe I'm biased but food tech really has a chance to change society. Exciting to be a part of it.
Theodores 8y ago
This idea is here already, at least in the UK. If you go into a motorway service station, exhibition centre or a railway station then you are presented with a choice of restaurants, coffee places and other stores. So you could have 'Delice de France' next to a 'Burger King' and half a dozen other places to 'choose from'. What is not obvious is that one company, e.g. someone like 'Compass' group, run all of the franchises at the site. So the choice is a fake one, the infrastructure behind the store fronts is all the same with the same loading bay for all the 'different' stores. The coffee may appear to be different and you might be able to choose between your favourite Italian/American/British coffeehouses and the coffee may even taste different in each of the different outlets, however, you won't get cheap or brilliant coffee, no matter what you believe about your chosen brand as, at that location, it is all coming from the same company. This company has just franchised a few brands to operate its storefronts from. Luckily people are easily fooled and they do not ever think to ask if the same company is behind all the apparent 'choices' they have on site. Communism was more honest, they didn't have fake brands.
- walterbell 8y ago
  Thanks for the background, that explains a lot about UK rail station food. Is this model also used in German rail stations?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  I don't think the choice is 'fake' at all. 'Operated by' really means owned by: the IP, processes, foods, experiences are created entirely separately, it's just one owner. If the food is good and people like it then hey. That said, I do wonder about quality, freshness, real experience, real innovation - no doubt scale provides all sorts of advantages, but it cuts out other things as well. There are zero 'scale' restaurants in my neighbourhood and I don't miss anything really - other than a coffee chain store. There's a knock-off Chipotle which fills the only hole I might miss on occasion!
- contingencies 8y ago
  Communism was more honest, they didn't have fake brands. Sincere smiles from an automated food retail startup in China. We are going for 100% personalized orders, in essence the consumer defines the recipe (nominally after discovery from a set of pre-ordained options they are free to deviate from entirely).
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I don’t really understand what you think the core of the problem is? Why should a consumer care who owns the franchise? What difference does that make to me? If you have a service station with a Starbucks and a Burger King are you saying they both secretly serve the same coffee? I’m sure Starbucks franchise agreements do not allow that and it will be the coffee that Starbucks select and roast (whether you think that’s good or bad), not the coffee Burger King supply. So there is a real difference and a real choice there isn’t there? They share a loading bay and a till system? Why on earth do care about that?
  - lucas_membrane 8y ago
    Because it is fake competition, which is pretty much what we get anymore. With real competition, one of the two places might do a better job of pleasing customers and get most of the business. With real competition, the employees preparing and serving the food will get a free market wage. Otherwise, it is all Disneypeople serving Disneyfood.
fredsanford 8y ago
And the drive to mediocrity continues. Now everybody can serve up TV dinners Applebees/IHOP/Darden Restaurant style...
- askafriend 8y ago
  Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? The article is about infrastructure for food preparation and storage. How many food entrepreneurs and chefs have you talked to? What are their biggest pain points and what are the biggest barriers to entry to go from a novel food idea to serving it up to customers? What are the biggest barriers to quality in food? How many restaurant-goers have you talked to? What kind of food do people want and how is that changing? How fast are delivery businesses growing YoY and can something like this enable more delivery-based restaurants? There are so many interesting questions and data around this space. If you have even a fraction of the answers to these question, please do share and contribute because as it stands now, your statement is more suited for Reddit. I can't respect such a shallow take on something quite complex.
  - monksy 8y ago
    The biggest cost in the restaurant industry is labor and very limited price points. ~15% of the price of your meal goes to the food cost. (That in its self is a challenge which is why people go for GFS and suppliers to deliver) Darien is known for being low quality because they have optimized their business to run with little skills. Made processes that could be taught vs using skilled and experienced labor.
  - a_c 8y ago
    I am very curious why food-related startups are mostly about delivery like deliveroo and uberEats. Is it because of the advertising efforts put in, or my lack of attention. Would love to learn from someone who can shed some light on your set of question!
    - petra 8y ago
      VC based companies want to control the app(controlling user demand) and control the delivery network. Why ? Roughly speaking, high demand means you can deliver cheaper than others(assuming you have the delivery network) - because if you deliver all the meals in my building, it's very efficient. Once you have those, you tend to win the market, make tons of money, and it's very hard for someone else to build that and challenge you. A very good business.
sethhochberg 8y ago
You don't even have to look to the big chains or into the future to see this principle in action - in NYC, Seamless/Grubhub/etc have created a whole industry of commissary kitchens operating multiple "restaurants" out of an anonymous, shared prep space, doing all of their business by delivery. I'm sure its probably the same in other similar markets. (The idea isn't really new, either... even pre-internet, the thousands of food carts and trucks around the city got most of their supplies from shared commissary kitchens who do some degree of prep and cooking far away from where the cart will eventually operate). We're just watching TechCrunch writers and the investors they write about discover commissary kitchens together.
- psergeant 8y ago
  > thousands of food carts and trucks And indeed restaurants themselves in the UK, especially pub ones, will order quite a lot of their food partially prepped already
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    Same in Italy, certain restaurant classes get premade meals that only need heating. Usually pubs but "enoteche" (wineries?) too
anon49124 8y ago
Hmm: looking at 19th century shops where only merchants picked products to self-checkout today, that seems like the trend. Everyone will end up doing everything themselves.
User23 8y ago
Most chain and many local bar restaurants barely have kitchens as is, they mainly just reheat Sysco or US Foods products.
Grue3 8y ago
It won't be big because most people don't want to eat soggy food that has been likely transported by a bicycle when they go to a restaurant.
gwbas1c 8y ago
Yet another fantasy that won't come true

64 points by briatx 8y ago

gamechangr 8y ago

duplicate - look at "past".

dang 8y ago
On HN it isn't a duplicate if there haven't been many reposts and the previous posts didn't get significant attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

jaegerpicker 8y ago

It's an interesting field that could potentially be huge. I'm working for a startup in that space, so maybe I'm biased but food tech really has a chance to change society. Exciting to be a part of it.

Theodores 8y ago

This idea is here already, at least in the UK. If you go into a motorway service station, exhibition centre or a railway station then you are presented with a choice of restaurants, coffee places and other stores. So you could have 'Delice de France' next to a 'Burger King' and half a dozen other places to 'choose from'. What is not obvious is that one company, e.g. someone like 'Compass' group, run all of the franchises at the site. So the choice is a fake one, the infrastructure behind the store fronts is all the same with the same loading bay for all the 'different' stores. The coffee may appear to be different and you might be able to choose between your favourite Italian/American/British coffeehouses and the coffee may even taste different in each of the different outlets, however, you won't get cheap or brilliant coffee, no matter what you believe about your chosen brand as, at that location, it is all coming from the same company. This company has just franchised a few brands to operate its storefronts from. Luckily people are easily fooled and they do not ever think to ask if the same company is behind all the apparent 'choices' they have on site. Communism was more honest, they didn't have fake brands.

walterbell 8y ago
Thanks for the background, that explains a lot about UK rail station food. Is this model also used in German rail stations?
sonnyblarney 8y ago
I don't think the choice is 'fake' at all. 'Operated by' really means owned by: the IP, processes, foods, experiences are created entirely separately, it's just one owner. If the food is good and people like it then hey. That said, I do wonder about quality, freshness, real experience, real innovation - no doubt scale provides all sorts of advantages, but it cuts out other things as well. There are zero 'scale' restaurants in my neighbourhood and I don't miss anything really - other than a coffee chain store. There's a knock-off Chipotle which fills the only hole I might miss on occasion!
contingencies 8y ago
Communism was more honest, they didn't have fake brands. Sincere smiles from an automated food retail startup in China. We are going for 100% personalized orders, in essence the consumer defines the recipe (nominally after discovery from a set of pre-ordained options they are free to deviate from entirely).
chrisseaton 8y ago
I don’t really understand what you think the core of the problem is? Why should a consumer care who owns the franchise? What difference does that make to me? If you have a service station with a Starbucks and a Burger King are you saying they both secretly serve the same coffee? I’m sure Starbucks franchise agreements do not allow that and it will be the coffee that Starbucks select and roast (whether you think that’s good or bad), not the coffee Burger King supply. So there is a real difference and a real choice there isn’t there? They share a loading bay and a till system? Why on earth do care about that?
- lucas_membrane 8y ago
  Because it is fake competition, which is pretty much what we get anymore. With real competition, one of the two places might do a better job of pleasing customers and get most of the business. With real competition, the employees preparing and serving the food will get a free market wage. Otherwise, it is all Disneypeople serving Disneyfood.

fredsanford 8y ago

And the drive to mediocrity continues. Now everybody can serve up TV dinners Applebees/IHOP/Darden Restaurant style...

askafriend 8y ago
Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? The article is about infrastructure for food preparation and storage. How many food entrepreneurs and chefs have you talked to? What are their biggest pain points and what are the biggest barriers to entry to go from a novel food idea to serving it up to customers? What are the biggest barriers to quality in food? How many restaurant-goers have you talked to? What kind of food do people want and how is that changing? How fast are delivery businesses growing YoY and can something like this enable more delivery-based restaurants? There are so many interesting questions and data around this space. If you have even a fraction of the answers to these question, please do share and contribute because as it stands now, your statement is more suited for Reddit. I can't respect such a shallow take on something quite complex.
- monksy 8y ago
  The biggest cost in the restaurant industry is labor and very limited price points. ~15% of the price of your meal goes to the food cost. (That in its self is a challenge which is why people go for GFS and suppliers to deliver) Darien is known for being low quality because they have optimized their business to run with little skills. Made processes that could be taught vs using skilled and experienced labor.
- a_c 8y ago
  I am very curious why food-related startups are mostly about delivery like deliveroo and uberEats. Is it because of the advertising efforts put in, or my lack of attention. Would love to learn from someone who can shed some light on your set of question!
  - petra 8y ago
    VC based companies want to control the app(controlling user demand) and control the delivery network. Why ? Roughly speaking, high demand means you can deliver cheaper than others(assuming you have the delivery network) - because if you deliver all the meals in my building, it's very efficient. Once you have those, you tend to win the market, make tons of money, and it's very hard for someone else to build that and challenge you. A very good business.

sethhochberg 8y ago

You don't even have to look to the big chains or into the future to see this principle in action - in NYC, Seamless/Grubhub/etc have created a whole industry of commissary kitchens operating multiple "restaurants" out of an anonymous, shared prep space, doing all of their business by delivery. I'm sure its probably the same in other similar markets. (The idea isn't really new, either... even pre-internet, the thousands of food carts and trucks around the city got most of their supplies from shared commissary kitchens who do some degree of prep and cooking far away from where the cart will eventually operate). We're just watching TechCrunch writers and the investors they write about discover commissary kitchens together.

psergeant 8y ago
> thousands of food carts and trucks And indeed restaurants themselves in the UK, especially pub ones, will order quite a lot of their food partially prepped already
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  Same in Italy, certain restaurant classes get premade meals that only need heating. Usually pubs but "enoteche" (wineries?) too

anon49124 8y ago

Hmm: looking at 19th century shops where only merchants picked products to self-checkout today, that seems like the trend. Everyone will end up doing everything themselves.

User23 8y ago

Most chain and many local bar restaurants barely have kitchens as is, they mainly just reheat Sysco or US Foods products.

Grue3 8y ago

It won't be big because most people don't want to eat soggy food that has been likely transported by a bicycle when they go to a restaurant.

gwbas1c 8y ago

Yet another fantasy that won't come true