It might be a spooky-sounding idea: That ghost kitchen chefs quietly create dishes in some unknown place, then pass them off to delivery drivers who leave food on the doorsteps of hungry Dallas-Fort Worth consumers who don’t want to leave home.
But ghost kitchens are not as confusing as they might sound. They don’t have to be mysterious at all. Here’s the lowdown on how ghost kitchens operate in Dallas, who has made them successful in Texas and beyond, and what doesn’t work about this rapidly-growing business model.
What’s a ghost kitchen?
A ghost kitchen is, simply, a restaurant without a dining room.
They also go by the name virtual kitchen or cloud kitchen. But these sites don’t live on the internet or in the sky; ghost kitchens are physically located in Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond. The reason for the vague moniker is because it doesn’t matter where ghost kitchens are located, because you will likely never visit one.
Most ghost kitchens aim to sell most of their food via delivery. Restaurateurs partner with third-party companies like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, and a driver picks up your food from a commissary or restaurant kitchen, then drops it off on your doorstep. A select few companies employ their own delivery drivers.
Some ghost kitchen companies also sell food for pick-up, which means customers visit the parking lot outside of the kitchen to grab their food curbside. But most are focused on delivery.
Where are ghost kitchens?
Ghost kitchens are usually found in one of two places: inside an existing restaurant anywhere in Dallas-Fort Worth; or inside a commissary or commercial kitchen outside of the high-rent hotspots in town.
Who runs Dallas’ ghost kitchens?
Anyone who can lease a commercial kitchen can open a ghost kitchen. So, that’s cool: The barrier to entry is much lower than it is to open a restaurant, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.
Local restaurateurs have tested out the ghost kitchen model, with levels of success. The restaurateur behind Sloane’s Corner is selling delivery pizza via a ghost kitchen named Pizza Leila. The model goes like this: Sloane’s Corner already has a full kitchen in downtown Dallas, where they make American food like burgers and pork chops for a lunch and dinner crowd in downtown Dallas. So why not make pizzas in a sliver of that kitchen space, too? It allows the company a new stream of revenue, with a totally different style of cuisine, without paying rent to a brand new restaurant.
The ghost kitchen idea works for big chains, too. Brinker International, the Dallas-based parent company of Chili’s, launched a ghost kitchen named It’s Just Wings. (You can guess what’s on the menu.) It’s Just Wings has an exclusive partnership with DoorDash — which some companies have used to their advantage, to leverage a single delivery company and streamline their process.
Ghost kitchens are also popular among celebrity chefs. David Chang — creator of the beloved restaurant Momofuku and star of the Netflix show Ugly Delicious — has long been obsessed with delivery and is now selling sandwiches in D-FW via a company named Fuku. Ivan Orkin, of New York City’s Ivan Ramen, is also selling his noodles locally. As is Guy Fieri, one of the world’s most famous TV chefs as the host of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives on Food Network.
What are some examples of popular ghost kitchens in Dallas?
Pizza seems to work well in a ghost kitchen format. Thunderbird Pies is one example: It’s the new sibling company of Zoli’s and Cane Rosso. Zoli’s sells New York style pizza and Cane Rosso sells Neapolitan style pizza in D-FW. Thunderbird Pies sells yet a third style of pizza — Detroit style. To test whether it was unique enough to stand on its own in D-FW, the company sold Thunderbird’s Detroit-style pies out of Zoli’s kitchens. Its success inspired a Thunderbird Pies standalone shop on Gaston Avenue in East Dallas, opening soon.
We love the name of Furlough Brothers, a pickup-only ghost kitchen in West Dallas started during the coronavirus pandemic. The menu includes a global smattering like a Philly cheesesteak, a deep-fried calzone, a Buffalo chicken sandwich and an al pastor burrito.
TLC Vegan Kitchen in Garland sells meat-free dishes like Buffalo cauliflower wings, green chile (not) chicken chili, and pizzas. It’s located at Revolving Kitchen in Garland, which advertises itself as a “virtual food hall” — yet another alluring way to explain how the ghost kitchen model works.
The celebrity chefs’ ghost kitchens have attracted lots of eyeballs, to no surprise. When Chang’s fried chicken sando concept Fuku landed in D-FW, it was one of the biggest stories on our site in early April. (Fuku also had some challenges: It fulfilled orders sloppily and ran out of food quickly.) Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen also drew great interest from Dallas TV foodies.
What are some of the problems with ghost kitchens?
Reliability can be an issue. Several ghost kitchens launched with fervor during the coronavirus pandemic and have since gone silent. One example is a company called Kitchen to Kitchen, which launched a Nashville hot chicken brand named Oddbird Chicken Kitchen; an Italian concept named Meatball Kitchen; and a Thai shop named Sweet Basil. Since they launched in late 2020, the website says they have “temporarily closed all our locations,” for reasons unknown. I reached out to the director of marketing to ask what happened; I didn’t get a response, but he no longer works for the company.
Consistency is another pitfall. Many ghost kitchens don’t have as much oversight as restaurant kitchens. This is especially true of celebrity chefs’ ghost kitchens: Chang does not oversee the food coming out of the two Dallas-area kitchens serving fried chicken sandos via his virtual concept Fuku. And Fieri, who lives in California, does not watch the line at his five ghost kitchens in D-FW.
Availability can be confusing. Ghost kitchens have flexible hours, and that works in their favor. But it doesn’t work in yours: They can turn off the delivery function if they run out of food. They can pivot to pickup only if something goes awry in their relationship with third-party delivery companies. They can shut down altogether if they don’t have enough staff. (And unlike a traditional restaurant, they don’t have to broadcast on social media that they’re closing, because they’re much less visible.) Basically, consumers are left to deal with whatever product or service a ghost kitchen chooses to offer.
Delivery/service fees are often high. Remember: Most ghost kitchens thrive on delivery. And consumers foot that bill, not only in third-party delivery fees, but also in service fees and tips. The restaurants selling the food bear some of that cost, too.
Are ghost kitchens new because of the coronavirus pandemic?
No. Ghost kitchens have existed for years, but they exploded in popularity because of the coronavirus pandemic, which deepened our reliance on restaurant-quality food delivery.
Look back at fall 2017, when a pizza joint in Deep Ellum was “secretly” running a mac and cheese business, selling it via Uber Eats only. As an Uber Eats spokesman said back then, these pop-up kitchens-within-a-kitchen allow an existing restaurant to launch a separate menu without much extra overhead. That’s exactly what’s still happening today.
Are ghost kitchens the future of restaurants?
Yes and no. Consumers crave delivery food from local and national food brands, and ghost kitchens can fill that need. Some of them really work — they deliver restaurant-quality food to people’s homes, how convenient! But ghost kitchens cannot replace the in-person restaurant experience, where people talk and laugh and eat and drink in a space outside of their home. Dallasites shouldn’t worry that ghost kitchens will replace traditional restaurants anytime soon. They’re more of a supplement — an answer to an at-home demand.
