When Sam Nazarian, started to notice several industries trending toward direct-to-consumer offerings, the hospitality industry veteran went with the flow and founded the ghost kitchen company Creating Culinary Communities.

Sam Nazarian said in an interview. “As we move into a post-pandemic era, we’re going to see many more brick-and-mortar concepts operating eight to 10 additional delivery-only brands via ghost or digital kitchens.”

Some people might tell you the restaurant industry is at a crossroads. Adam Rinella, however, will be the first to tell you that it’s actually at the intersection of about a dozen crossroads.

A local marketing campaign turned pandemic sales around at the fast-casual brand.

Its latest concept, Arthur Treacher's, will soon feature items from another chain on its menu. Also, Zenput raises $27 million, Slice hires a CFO and more.

Iconic New York Brand Opens Over 200 Ghost Restaurants Since 2020, Bringing the brand’s total number of locations to over 400.

The virtual restaurant concept reflects a trend in the industry that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With more than 6,500 restaurants operating in the U.S., 29 countries and U.S. territories, the QSR franchise also found it important to partner with franchisees with their delivery-only offerings, Coppler added, even abroad.

It recently surpassed 150 locations in Canada and is on target to be at about 170 by the end of the year.

The Business Times first reported in May that design and construction firm Chiu Teng Group is understood to be selling its portfolio of 29 ground-floor cloud kitchen units in CT Hub 2 via expression of interest.

In episode four of our Technology and the Evolution of Campus Dining series with Grubhub, we speak with George Kuzma, Vice President for Business Development, Gourmet Dining about some of the technologies that are changing the campus dining experience.

"The restaurant industry has largely focused on front of house technology when in fact cost savings start with eliminating waste within the wholesale food supply ordering process. Restaurants across North America have come to rely on Notch to solve this problem quickly and seamlessly," said Jordan Huck, CEO, Notch.

The company focused on everyday essentials will add made-to-order food to its arsenal, marking a new phase for last-mile delivery and presenting an instant competitor for restaurants.

Starbird has dramatically scaled up its small footprint and grown same-store sales 36 percent during the first half of 2021 as it begins to franchise the upscale fast-food brick-and-mortar brand, which also includes four successful virtual restaurant concepts under its wings.

Ampex Brands CEO Tabbassum Mumtaz and brand president Ericka Garza see food trucks, ghost kitchens and other formats in the chain’s future.

"Amazon has been around in food delivery for one year, but we have so far not seen any impact on our market share," Zomato co-founder Gaurav Gupta said.

Can getting gourmet food from the likes of Mission Chinese Food and La Esquina be the secret to getting workers back to the office? Steven Kamali’s Kitchclub is going to find out.

Deliveroo GCC general manager Anis Harb believes it’s the future of F&B.

In this week’s numbers, I examine the trends in virtual brands from Dark Kitchens. It seems we are headed for a choice of chicken… or chicken. Is this the wave of the future?

Benjamin E. Helfman of Greenberg Glusker shares his insights and assessments regarding the current state of the industry that Angelenos most certainly couldn’t live without.

The pandemic has prompted a rethinking of our cities and how we go about our lives. What does the urban shift mean for the future of retail? More specifically, how does the on-demand economy change the retailer’s business model? And, what are the last-mile delivery challenges retailers face?

By analyzing a number of the high-end fine-dining home food delivery options that have been offered (in the UK and in the US) in this narrative review, we highlight a number of promising directions for those wanting to optimize the at-home multisensory dining experience, wherever in the world they might be.

Prepare Your Restaurants For The Future Digital Consumer Or Perish.

Tips from lodging experts include outsourcing, cross training and boosting retention by meeting worker lifestyle needs.

Eating-out trend has drastically changed due to pandemic.

The food delivery service will quadruple its service fees in some cases - mostly if you're ordering from a big name restaurant - and you'll probably still pay a delivery fee on top.

Co-founder Saman Darkan gives insight into their journey behind Kitopi. Watch the full story here.

Kitopi, which stands for Kitchen Utopia, was founded in January 2018 by Mohamad Ballout, Saman Darkan, Bader Ataya, and Andy Arenas, and it has raised $504 million to date. It operates over 60 cloud kitchens across the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, and Bahrain, through partnerships with more than 200 brands in these four markets.

Walkers acted as British Virgin Islands counsel to leading managed cloud kitchen platform Kitopi on its US$415 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Softbank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Chimera, DisruptAD, B. Riley, Dogus Group, Next Play Capital, and Nordstar.

We speak to Manhal Naser, Group CEO of AWJ Investments about the cloud kitchen business.

The company’s 13-year journey from idea to IPO has been marked by several misses, many wins and a ton of learning along the way.

Nice overview of the leading approaches and companies in India.

kEATchen was launched as a cloud kitchen to help vendors navigate the backend systems of food deliveries. This is especially so for small-time street food vendors who mostly derive their livelihood from walk-in and dine-in customers.

Kitchen Robotics is in the business of automating ghost kitchens with hardware and software tools. Beastro is its all-in-one standalone kiosk.