The way that restaurants prepare and deliver your food is in a state of rapid change. We are all familiar with the shift away from sit-down restaurants and towards delivery-based business models, a trend that has only accelerated during the last 18 months. But did you know that delivery-centered food services have grown into a $43 billion dollar global industry?
The marriage of app technology (GrubHub, Uber Eats, etc.) and underutilized real-estate repurposed as kitchen space has generated a huge number of kitchens built to cater to app-based delivery services. These ghost kitchens are proliferating but it is important to note that not all multi-tenant kitchens are created equal.
Today, we compare ghost kitchens to growth kitchens in the Chicago area. We look at the ghost kitchen business model as it has been built out by one of the earliest movers in the arena, Cloud Kitchens, and contrast it with Amped Kitchens’ growth kitchens and their innovative service-oriented offerings. Amped Kitchens is a proud entrant into the Chicago market, offering flexible, exclusive kitchen space that is easily adaptable to the business purposes of most food companies.
WHAT IS A GHOST KITCHEN?
Cloud Kitchens has become synonymous with ghost kitchen rentals. The question is what distinguishes a ghost kitchen in Chicago from the other kitchen rental options on the market, especially Amped Kitchens?
Ghost kitchens are also known as virtual kitchens, shadow kitchens, and even dark kitchens. And while each name may sound more dramatic than the last, the basic idea behind all of them is simple. Take a typical restaurant operation and strip out all of the primary cost centers such as:
- Waitstaff
- Tables
- Greeters
- Busboys
- Dedicated parking space
- The dining room itself
Ghost kitchens generally offer multiple basic restaurant kitchens, usually 150-300 sf in size, supported by order routing software that enables tenants to receive and track online orders from their customers via delivery apps like GrubHub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash. The goal is for the ghost kitchen operations to maximize profit while minimizing brick-and-mortar expenses. The kitchens are typically uniform in size and often do not include cooking equipment, but either way, most ghost kitchens offer little in the way of storage, loading areas, or other support or amenities aside from the order routing software and staffed hand-off area.
The cost structure for tenants of ghost kitchens typically includes a percentage fee based on the dollar amount of every order they receive. This charge can account for up to 30% of the kitchen’s take on each delivery. While some higher-volume producers in a ghost kitchen are able to negotiate down these percentage fees, for many tenants of ghost kitchens this charge can take a significant bite out of their profit margins.
HOW DO GROWTH KITCHENS AT AMPED KITCHENS WORK?
Like a ghost kitchen, Amped Kitchens also offers individual, private kitchens but unlike ghost kitchens, Amped Kitchens’ production spaces come in a much wider variety of sizes and options and are effective for a far greater range of food businesses. Amped Kitchens spaces are ideal for manufactures of food for sale in stores (CPG), multi-tenant restaurants looking for a central commissary space, or meal subscription services looking to expand their production as well as restaurants focusing on delivery services.
Amped Kitchens offers an abundance of on-site amenities to support their tenants including ample on-site storage, multiple loading docks, professional warehouse and porter staff, packaging rooms, and much more. A growth kitchen at Amped Kitchens is far more adaptable to the purposes of companies looking to build out their production capacity than most ghost kitchens.
And unlike most ghost kitchens, Amped Kitchens does not charge a percentage on order-based fees so that Amped Kitchens’ tenants can grow their business, leverage the Amped Kitchens’ flexibility, and their rent will not change (unless, of course, you want to move to a bigger room).
Do you want to open a commissary kitchen to support more locations and/or push delivery options? A growth kitchen will accommodate your business model providing multiple options to enable you to adapt and grow along with fast-changing market conditions. Looking for space for R&D or a fully functioning test or pilot production environment to hone new and exciting recipes? Amped Kitchens supports all of that and more. With gold-standard kitchen production space, industry-leading amenities, and a professional staff managing logistics and loading, Amped Kitchens is all about flexibility, scalability, and tenants building a successful food business.
WHAT DOES CLOUD KITCHENS IN CHICAGO OFFER?
Cloud Kitchens offers their customers a turn-key approach to the world of app-based food delivery. Cloud Kitchens in Chicago offers 150-300 square foot kitchens to restaurants and others looking to expand their delivery options. The facility provides order routing software that can facilitate the flow of orders coming to each kitchen and helping make sure those orders get matched with the right driver. The order routing software also enables Cloud Kitchens to see the tenant’s gross receipts and charge fees based on that order flow.
There can, however, be drawbacks to the implementation of ghost kitchen rentals. Cloud Kitchens Chicago’s locations have been known to generate significant extra traffic in the neighborhoods in which they are located. The stream of delivery drivers has made navigating around the area of Cloud Kitchens’ facilities a headache where parking is difficult and drivers unpredictably lurch in and out of their cars. As a result, the logistics challenges have been considerable and the efforts to resolve them have not always been successful.
WHAT AMPED KITCHENS’ GROWTH KITCHENS OFFER
Amped Kitchens’ growth kitchen production spaces adhere to a different philosophy. Each Amped Kitchens space is based within a strong, supportive community of food makers, each taking advantage of their top quality, exclusive to one tenant production space, supported by a wide variety of on-site amenities that facilitate growth and expansion. A large part of the Amped Kitchens’ advantage is the adaptability of their rental kitchen spaces alongside premier logistics and ample on-site storage (dry, refrigerated, and frozen) that together provide the flexibility to allow your food business to expand quickly and efficiently.
Amped Kitchens offers a much wider range of rental spaces than would be found in the standard ghost kitchen operation. From 150 square-foot kitchen rentals to a sprawling 4,300 square-foot production space, we have a space well suited to most any food production purpose. Amped Kitchens serves a far broader array of food makers than would be found in a standard ghost kitchen, including companies focused on consumer packaged goods to multi-location restaurants looking for commissary/central kitchen space as well as meal subscription services looking for large production space to grow their operations.
Unlike most ghost kitchens, Amped Kitchens’ industry-leading amenities include high-capacity infrastructure to support high volume production as well as ample dry, cold, and frozen storage space, multiple loading docks, packaging rooms, multiple dish rooms, and much else. Amped Kitchens also offers top-tier amenities designed to support your business outside the kitchen from office space and meeting rooms to fully staffed docks and professional custodial and porter staff to assure the highest quality experience for its tenants.
What sets Amped Kitchens apart is the efficiency with which our facilities allow food companies of all sizes to scale up production and the flexibility to help meet those companies meet ever-changing customer requirements. Our gold-standard facilities enable adherence to some of the highest food safety regulations including SQF, HACCP, and others. All of our long-term rental spaces are set up to accommodate specialty food regulations including USDA requirements and organic, kosher, and gluten-free certifications.
WHY CHOOSE AMPED KITCHENS CHICAGO FOR YOUR COMMERCIAL KITCHEN RENTAL
Amped Kitchens offers growth kitchen rental spaces to food makers in the Chicago metro area. We are building a thriving community of Chicago’s best food companies by offering highly adaptable kitchens supported by high capacity infrastructure and best-in-class amenities. From manufacturers of consumer packaged goods to multi-location restaurants looking for commissary space to meal delivery companies and larger corporate food makers in need of pilot production and test kitchens, Amped Kitchens accommodates the growth plans for the widest variety of food businesses.
If you are looking for an exclusive, private kitchen rental that will super-charge your company’s growth and expansion, Amped Kitchens is the best option for many. For more information, please contact us today.
