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I kept waiting for the Dark Kitchen section of the article to end with "...and this is a miserable, alienating model that makes nobody happy," but it never came

I kept waiting for the Dark Kitchen section of the article to end with "...and this is a miserable, alienating model that makes nobody happy," but it never came.

necubi 2y ago
Right, the ghost kitchens make (generally) terrible food, but are able to get orders by spamming the DoorDash/UberEats search pages. And if a particular brand gets too many bad reviews, no problem. Shut down and start a new one with another punny name. Traditionally restaurants (like many software companies, incidentally) live and die by their "brand" and by their ability to get repeat customers. This more-or-less aligns incentives between the restauranteur and their patrons. But under the ghost kitchen model, there's no reputation, no real brand, so the restaurant is incentivized only to make food as quickly and cheaply as possible.
- cyberax 2y ago
  That hasn't been my experience with ghost/dark kitchens. They work great for niche ethnic foods that might not attract enough foot traffic.
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  The cloud kitchens I've ordered from were great and often had food that you wouldn't be able to get whatever, like just basic roasted chicken. I think it's a fantastic model where a talented chef can just focus on cooking.
  - necubi 2y ago
    There's nothing inherently wrong with the disaggregation of kitchen and dining rooms, so certainly you can get good food out of a commissary kitchen. In my area there's an amazing korean katsu place that's run out of one. But restaurants like that are fighting against the incentive structure, and the incentives always win.
- quirino 2y ago
  That's also my issue with dark kitchens. Apps list actual, physical restaurants, next to what is just people making food in their own homes. And I've found instances of the name changes you mentioned. There's this "premium" burger place I like has alternative "delivery first" menu with lower cost offerings and a whole different name and branding. You can also order from this menu in person but you need to ask for it. I find this to be an interesting strategy.
- apantel 2y ago
  It’s the same with news and media. The traditional media companies (news, television, newspapers), etc all had to be massive brick-and-mortar businesses with huge capex (printing presses, broadcast equipment, etc). Very high barrier to entry, high cost to play, and you had to organize all of it under a real brand tied to real plants and offices… which meant you had to care about your reputation… which meant you had to make sure your editorial department was doing a good job. Now the web is full of bootstrapped digital media outlets that have no skin in the game in terms of real-world presence. They don’t have printing presses to run. They don’t have delivery trucks. They don’t have inventory to manage. It’s just air. There’s nothing there. Maybe a single open-plan office, or just a group of digital nomads working out of a corner of a coworking space. You can build and tear down an outfit like that in a week. Whereas to spec out, order, install, house, operate, and amortize/depreciate a single printing press would be a multi-year to multi-decade undertaking by a real business. It’s all fluffy clouds now.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Seems easy to avoid by just not ordering delivery from a restaurant that you've never tried, seen IRL, heard of, or even read good reviews for.
immibis 2y ago
How doesn't it? I've ordered from some; they were fine. Expensive, but food delivery always is. This probably depends on your city, its regulations, the ratio of dark to normal kitchens, and whether enshittification-as-a-service providers have entered your city yet. Disaggregation of food-making services and seated-dining services makes a whole lot of sense, actually. Just look at any food court - why should each food-maker have its own seating area, when seating areas are interchangeable and cheaper to deliver at scale? However, disaggregation of food-making services and branding absolutely doesn't make sense for anyone except for people trying to confuse you to make a buck.
- mcpar-land 2y ago
  Because dark kitchens / ghost kitchens aren't just outsourcing their seating area, they're outsourcing everything but the logo. Ghost kitchens will frequently "cook for" more than one "restaurant," but these separate restaurants will have the exact same items on their menu, because they're coming out of the same kitchen. It's dishonest and done exclusively to put more "options" on delivery apps that funnel orders to the same business. There's a dozen other reasons ghost kitchens are bad for everyone involved (except the business owners).
  - immibis 2y ago
    Oh, yeah. Maybe it's worth differentiating between kitchens that are otherwise legit but exclusively serve via delivery apps, and kitchens that are spam. The former can be "ghost kitchens" and the latter can be "dark kitchens".
  - rockemsockem 2y ago
    This is the first time I'm seeing that definition applied to ghost kitchens. I've always seen it used to describe food for pickup/delivery out of an industrial kitchen which usually has several "restaurants" working out of it. I've had very good experiences with these.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    > Because dark kitchens / ghost kitchens aren't just outsourcing their seating area, they're outsourcing everything but the logo. Which means that you thought your food was going to be prepared by some people you don't know, but ended up getting food prepared by other people you don't know. > It's dishonest and done exclusively to put more "options" on delivery apps that funnel orders to the same business. How is that any more dishonest than multiple OEMs rebranding the same manufacturer's consumer products or conventional restaurants using the same recipes and buying the same bulk ingredients from Cheney Bros. or Sysco?

I kept waiting for the Dark Kitchen section of the article to end with "...and this is a miserable, alienating model that makes nobody happy," but it never came.

necubi 2y ago

Right, the ghost kitchens make (generally) terrible food, but are able to get orders by spamming the DoorDash/UberEats search pages. And if a particular brand gets too many bad reviews, no problem. Shut down and start a new one with another punny name. Traditionally restaurants (like many software companies, incidentally) live and die by their "brand" and by their ability to get repeat customers. This more-or-less aligns incentives between the restauranteur and their patrons. But under the ghost kitchen model, there's no reputation, no real brand, so the restaurant is incentivized only to make food as quickly and cheaply as possible.

cyberax 2y ago
That hasn't been my experience with ghost/dark kitchens. They work great for niche ethnic foods that might not attract enough foot traffic.
rockemsockem 2y ago
The cloud kitchens I've ordered from were great and often had food that you wouldn't be able to get whatever, like just basic roasted chicken. I think it's a fantastic model where a talented chef can just focus on cooking.
- necubi 2y ago
  There's nothing inherently wrong with the disaggregation of kitchen and dining rooms, so certainly you can get good food out of a commissary kitchen. In my area there's an amazing korean katsu place that's run out of one. But restaurants like that are fighting against the incentive structure, and the incentives always win.
quirino 2y ago
That's also my issue with dark kitchens. Apps list actual, physical restaurants, next to what is just people making food in their own homes. And I've found instances of the name changes you mentioned. There's this "premium" burger place I like has alternative "delivery first" menu with lower cost offerings and a whole different name and branding. You can also order from this menu in person but you need to ask for it. I find this to be an interesting strategy.
apantel 2y ago
It’s the same with news and media. The traditional media companies (news, television, newspapers), etc all had to be massive brick-and-mortar businesses with huge capex (printing presses, broadcast equipment, etc). Very high barrier to entry, high cost to play, and you had to organize all of it under a real brand tied to real plants and offices… which meant you had to care about your reputation… which meant you had to make sure your editorial department was doing a good job. Now the web is full of bootstrapped digital media outlets that have no skin in the game in terms of real-world presence. They don’t have printing presses to run. They don’t have delivery trucks. They don’t have inventory to manage. It’s just air. There’s nothing there. Maybe a single open-plan office, or just a group of digital nomads working out of a corner of a coworking space. You can build and tear down an outfit like that in a week. Whereas to spec out, order, install, house, operate, and amortize/depreciate a single printing press would be a multi-year to multi-decade undertaking by a real business. It’s all fluffy clouds now.
hot_gril 2y ago
Seems easy to avoid by just not ordering delivery from a restaurant that you've never tried, seen IRL, heard of, or even read good reviews for.

immibis 2y ago

How doesn't it? I've ordered from some; they were fine. Expensive, but food delivery always is. This probably depends on your city, its regulations, the ratio of dark to normal kitchens, and whether enshittification-as-a-service providers have entered your city yet. Disaggregation of food-making services and seated-dining services makes a whole lot of sense, actually. Just look at any food court - why should each food-maker have its own seating area, when seating areas are interchangeable and cheaper to deliver at scale? However, disaggregation of food-making services and branding absolutely doesn't make sense for anyone except for people trying to confuse you to make a buck.

mcpar-land 2y ago
Because dark kitchens / ghost kitchens aren't just outsourcing their seating area, they're outsourcing everything but the logo. Ghost kitchens will frequently "cook for" more than one "restaurant," but these separate restaurants will have the exact same items on their menu, because they're coming out of the same kitchen. It's dishonest and done exclusively to put more "options" on delivery apps that funnel orders to the same business. There's a dozen other reasons ghost kitchens are bad for everyone involved (except the business owners).
- immibis 2y ago
  Oh, yeah. Maybe it's worth differentiating between kitchens that are otherwise legit but exclusively serve via delivery apps, and kitchens that are spam. The former can be "ghost kitchens" and the latter can be "dark kitchens".
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  This is the first time I'm seeing that definition applied to ghost kitchens. I've always seen it used to describe food for pickup/delivery out of an industrial kitchen which usually has several "restaurants" working out of it. I've had very good experiences with these.
- Gormo 2y ago
  > Because dark kitchens / ghost kitchens aren't just outsourcing their seating area, they're outsourcing everything but the logo. Which means that you thought your food was going to be prepared by some people you don't know, but ended up getting food prepared by other people you don't know. > It's dishonest and done exclusively to put more "options" on delivery apps that funnel orders to the same business. How is that any more dishonest than multiple OEMs rebranding the same manufacturer's consumer products or conventional restaurants using the same recipes and buying the same bulk ingredients from Cheney Bros. or Sysco?