It seems like ages since takeout was limited to two options: pizza and Chinese food. With a growing variety of delivery services popping up (think GrubHub, Seamless, Postmates, and even UberEats) the options have expanded exponentially. With more people opting for prepared meals rather than homemade ones, it seems a natural progression to see virtual restaurants. Also known as ghost or digital restaurants, virtual restaurants function in commissary kitchens and make food exclusively for delivery. There’s no dine-in option, just a hot meal delivered right to your door. Virtual restaurants exist to inflate dinner options while simplifying the process of getting the food from kitchen to customer.
HOW THEY WORK
The genius of this business design is its simplicity. A small, efficient kitchen works to create top-notch meals. Then, food delivery services are brought in to do what they do best: bring you your meals as quickly as possible.
HOW THEY SAVE RESTAURATEURS MONEY
For starters, there’s no front-of-house. No wait staff, no bartenders, no liquor license required.
Secondly, there is less space required and no need to worry about being located in a trendy neighborhood. This lowers the cost of rent, which can often break a new restaurant.
Perhaps most importantly; the kitchens operate efficiently. In some cases they’re set up like assembly lines to maximize speed when producing a great number of lunches and dinners. Several owners figured out that they can use one kitchen to create multiple menus. Now customers can order dinner from a burger joint, a vegetarian spot, and a trendy poke bowl place. And it might all come from the same kitchen, made by the same people.
WHERE CUSTOM PRINTING COMES IN
Let’s say a restaurant owner has created three different virtual restaurants that all operate out of the same kitchen. Each entity requires its own menu and its own identity. But how can that be accomplished when customers don’t have a physical restaurant to relate to the food? That’s where the right packaging comes in. Just consider the benefits of sending food out in the appropriate, on-trend packaging that bears the company logo. There’s also the option to cross-promote all the “restaurants” that use the same kitchen. So a customer who orders poke will get dinner in a paper bag that also promotes your burger joint. Without the physical restaurant for the customer to associate with the food, they will rely heavily on the branding.
Whether you run several virtual restaurants or one physical spot or food truck, never miss an opportunity to get your company logo out there. Don’t know where to begin? Let us help. Call our experts at 888-321-2248 for assistance.
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