All About the Ghost Restaurant Trend

Being aware of global food trends is more important than ever when you are trying to stay competitive in the foodservice industry. One food trend that we can anticipate seeing continue to grow is ghost restaurants. Keatz, a European ghost restaurant start-up, has raised more than €12 million – and it’s only the beginning.

So, what is a ghost restaurant? Ghost restaurants are delivery only eateries. There are no seats, no servers and no storefronts. This trend is ready to take the food industry by storm. With the rise in third party food delivery, this concept is really not that surprising.

Customers, especially Millennials, enjoy eating their favourite restaurant food from the comfort of their sofas. Why stop your Netflix marathon midway to run to a store or your favourite restaurant, or worse yet, cook dinner? With ghost restaurants you don’t have to. Ghost restaurants are just large kitchens so the problem of underutilized space is eliminated.

There are plenty of benefits to this restaurant concept:

  1. When your presence is only online or on a mobile app, you can change menu items, concepts and hours without having to update signage or printed materials. You also do not need as big of a space to operate because you are not seating customers.
  2. Your labour costs are lower and you will spend less on start up costs because you do not need to buy as many supplies.
  3. The traditional restaurant business model calls for high upfront investments and large overhead costs which makes growth difficult when you are getting started. Ghost restaurants are easier to manage as they require less money to get started. The biggest investment is getting noticed.

Using NCCO’s bespoke labels, some operators run multiple ghost restaurants from one kitchen by simply labelling bags differently. Curious about this opportunity? To discuss bespoke label opportunities, locate your representative on this map and fill out a contact form.

Time will tell if this trend has the potential for longevity, but it is definitely something to pay attention to and given that food delivery continues to grow in popularity and profit, chances are we are going to see ghost restaurants continue to grow.

Translate »