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ghost kitchens can absolutely make money. Them being done at scale with VC money, most likely not. But as the below commenter said, if you can use same ingredi

ghost kitchens can absolutely make money. Them being done at scale with VC money, most likely not. But as the below commenter said, if you can use same ingredients across multiple dishes, it reduces waste and can reduce COGS. A small restaurant can do it, the issue there is establishing a brand, but if all your orders are coming via 3rd party apps. not sure how much brand awareness you actually need

notyourday 6y ago
> ghost kitchens can absolutely make money. That is as assumption that has been made time and time again and it always failed. The most important part of a successful kitchen is a near zero dwell time. The smallest dwell time is achieved by having a kitchen be colocated with the customer.
- jayparth 6y ago
  As someone who has never worked in the restaurant industry, I don't understand, at all, what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?
  - juuular 6y ago
    Not them, but I imagine that it's because your fixed costs never stop — you can't just tell your staff to go home and not get paid until the next customer gets in. Every hour you're open, money goes out. You need to have continuous sales to even have the opportunity to make ends meet. Even if you're losing money each hour but still making a few sales, you have some flexibility with tweaking your formula to reduce the losses or turn it into a net even. If you're just sitting idly, you're just burning money without anything to do about it.
  - notyourday 6y ago
    Dwell time is the time between the order is finished and it reaching the customer who gives thumbs up or thumbs down ( order is wrong ). It seems from the initial glance that dwell time is irrelevant because a kitchen can just go to the next order but that's not actually the case because without yes/no from a customer the kitchen can continue to make the same errors without adjusting. In the world of ghost kitchens dwell time is terrible because in reality the only feedback the kitchen gets is an asynchronous negative review that will be received a day or two later at best. That's the reason why pretty much all ghost kitchen based restaurants rapidly flame out.
jpm_sd 6y ago
"ghost kitchens" that make money are called factories. Factories where they make frozen pizza and lean cuisines.

notyourday 6y ago

> ghost kitchens can absolutely make money. That is as assumption that has been made time and time again and it always failed. The most important part of a successful kitchen is a near zero dwell time. The smallest dwell time is achieved by having a kitchen be colocated with the customer.

jayparth 6y ago
As someone who has never worked in the restaurant industry, I don't understand, at all, what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?
- juuular 6y ago
  Not them, but I imagine that it's because your fixed costs never stop — you can't just tell your staff to go home and not get paid until the next customer gets in. Every hour you're open, money goes out. You need to have continuous sales to even have the opportunity to make ends meet. Even if you're losing money each hour but still making a few sales, you have some flexibility with tweaking your formula to reduce the losses or turn it into a net even. If you're just sitting idly, you're just burning money without anything to do about it.
- notyourday 6y ago
  Dwell time is the time between the order is finished and it reaching the customer who gives thumbs up or thumbs down ( order is wrong ). It seems from the initial glance that dwell time is irrelevant because a kitchen can just go to the next order but that's not actually the case because without yes/no from a customer the kitchen can continue to make the same errors without adjusting. In the world of ghost kitchens dwell time is terrible because in reality the only feedback the kitchen gets is an asynchronous negative review that will be received a day or two later at best. That's the reason why pretty much all ghost kitchen based restaurants rapidly flame out.

jpm_sd 6y ago

"ghost kitchens" that make money are called factories. Factories where they make frozen pizza and lean cuisines.