Darryl Spinks, the company's head of retail services, talks about the shift into ghost kitchens and plans to more actively court small and regional restaurant tenants.

In Pasadena, California, there’s a storefront shared by 25 restaurant brands. It’s what’s known as a “ghost kitchen” or “virtual kitchen” –– the restaurants operating there fill takeout and delivery orders only.

OnTrend Concepts is thrilled to announce that Middleby, a leader in foodservice equipment, has signed on as Platinum Sponsor for The Ghost Kitchen Conference!

Seven years after it began franchising, The Halal Guys is closing in on 100 worldwide locations as it anticipates opening 30 to 40 new units over the next five years. With a product that’s well suited to delivery and carryout, the New York-based brand is continuing testing inside three ghost kitchens and is exploring new drive-thru locations as franchisees look to capitalize on vacant restaurant spaces now on the market.

SPB Hospitality is blazing the flavor trail and giving fans a whole new ‘cue experience with the launch of its latest virtual brand – Ember Smoked BBQ.

The concept’s defining feature is something customers won't easily forget: the buns range in color from bright pink to purple to lime green.

Toss ’em Wing Factory is tossing up more than just wings, they also have entered into the chicken sandwich wars with four different options.

The coronavirus pandemic changed the face of restaurants. Not only did it force over 100,000 to shutter on a permanent basis, but it also changed the way restaurants operate.

Ghost kitchen pioneer Sam Nazarian is set to take a giant leap into the future of dining next month when he opens his first brick and mortar concepts at Brookfield’s Manhattan West in NYC, and later, the Phipps plaza mall in Atlanta.

Kitch is announcing a new partnership with Alberta-based Gzooh Kitchens to help them launch virtual brands across North America. The Kitch marketplace enables food operators to host ghost kitchens and innovative food concepts in unused commercial kitchen space.

To see the future of food delivery, just look at chicken wings.

Find out how the founder of Foodhaul keeps hospitality alive through ghost kitchen concepts.

Many fast-food chains, including Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, and Burger King, continue to expand their ghost kitchen operations and lean further into the delivery space.

No longer the embarrassing relative that no one wants to talk about, well-known brands embraced dark kitchens to survive. And start-ups found the cost-efficiency of a dark kitchen, when delivery was the only option anyway, enabled them to become established in a difficult market.

When looking at the best place for a ghost kitchen, the emerging consensus seems to indicate a hybrid model with a food hall may work best. Providing parking space for drivers and spaces for dining inside and outside could work in a post-pandemic world.

While the UK, France and Germany have hotbeds of startup activity in the ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant space over the past couple years, Sweden and the bustling Stockholm innovation ecosystem has been relatively quiet when it comes to new restaurant tech startups.

Cloud kitchens are already meant to reduce the burden of infrastructure on food and beverage brands by providing them with centralized facilities to prepare meals for delivery. This means the responsibility falls on cloud kitchen operators to make sure they have enough locations to meet demand from F&B clients, while ensuring fast deliveries to end customers.