Mixed Feelings About Ghost Kitchens

I'm not quite sure how I feel about so-called ghost kitchens. There are three (?) of them set up at Buca di Beppo. I had no idea until I looked at Postmates.

One is MrBeast Burger which has already been mentioned in this forum. Another is a gourmet mac & cheese set-up (Larray's Mac & Cheese), and I love some mac & cheese. The other one is called Foodgod Truffle Fries (not making that up; look for it on Postmates).

One question I have up front is whether Buca di Beppo is over-reaching by having THREE ghost kitchens on top of their existing menu. It seems like they just grabbed as many ghost kitchen prospects as they could find and the quality of the final product of all four menus will suffer. Am I wrong?

There are more of these around town, and I NEVER hear about them (until they show up on a food delivery service website), so I can't figure out how they turn a profit. You can't even pick up your orders. It's delivery or nothing. Most of these food delivery services charge a premium price for it, and I get it. Gas is expensive, and the drivers need to make money, but I've heard a lot of sketchy stories about these companies screwing over their drivers and drivers screwing over the people ordering food.

Who are you supposed to complain to if a ghost kitchen order gets borked? Will the host restaurant actually honor complaints?

I also get it that it certainly saves on the expense of franchising, building and staffing full restaurants during a pandemic.

I just can't quite put my finger on why the proliferation of these ghost kitchens bugs me. Maybe it's because, in general, delivered food suffers in quality simply due to the time it takes from cooking the food to the time it arrives at its destination? Pizza succeeds because it's easily transportable, but french fries? Big nope there.

At current, this and also the proliferation of Cajun seafood boil restaurants are my two main pet peeves. #allrestaurantsare...seafood boils?

Would anyone else care to share their thoughts. I'd like to see some other perspectives.

I agree about the Ghost Kitchens, I thought article the other day about another one at being done by the chef at Churchill Downs. It was going to be ribs, the article didn't say what he was going to you for a kitchen to do it, maybe Chefs Space on West Mohammed Ali? I know a lot of food trucks and other small operations use that place.

We've actually gotten a couple of picnic meals from the Bluegrass Supper Club, which is Damaris Phillips & Coby Ming and they use that space. They've been doing weekly picnic this summer lecture really a lot of fun, a little pricey but the food is great!

Overall, I kind of agree with you about Ghost Kitchens, it seems hard to get good food only through delivery and many items don't travel very well. On top of that since I don't have a street presence is really no place you can go to to complain if you have a problem.

As for the seafood boil places, we haven't tried any of them yet and probably won't unless we hear some good reports about them.

At current, this and also the proliferation of Cajun seafood boil restaurants are my two main pet peeves.

How do you feel about a Cajun seafood ghost kitchen? The Captain’s Boil is a Canadian chain of Cajun seafood restaurants (yes, really). During the pandemic it opened a bunch of ghost kitchens in the United States, and one of them is at the Frisch’s in St. Matthews. I wonder if that’s a good idea. If I was going to order crawfish and mussels, I’d prefer to get them from a restaurant that specializes in that type of food, and sells a lot of it.

The Norfolk newspaper had an interesting story about ghost kitchens earlier this year, for those interested in how the food is:

https://www.pilotonline.com/food-drink/ ... story.html

PZA Kitchen is also Buca, I'm fairly certain.

I agree, it's annoying.

Buca is also running a Guy Fieri concept and something with cookies.

The Norfolk newspaper had an interesting story about ghost kitchens earlier this year, for those interested in how the food is:

https://www.pilotonline.com/food-drink/ ... story.html

I know someone who works for a global restaurant POS provider (you'd know the name) and he mentioned something the other day that the Pilot article alluded to. The delivery services are the ones driving much of this ghost kitchen stuff.

I know someone who works for a global restaurant POS provider (you'd know the name) and he mentioned something the other day that the Pilot article alluded to. The delivery services are the ones driving much of this ghost kitchen stuff.

When you think about it that makes perfect sense for them. They can go to one location and pick up many items from several different restaurants. In addition since the restaurant isn't worrying about serving customers in a dining room they can concentrate much more on providing food for takeout. Cookies were good when Lalo

There's even a ghost kitchen at Spinelli's called @pizza.

Like so many things in the wild, wild west of the internet, I wonder how this is regulated. Can one just find an app that charges a fee and interfaces with a plethora of drivers from who knows where? Can one create a ghost kitchen one week under a given name and from an undisclosed location, and then just change the name to dodge any complaints from the previous week? These are rhetorical questions. But it makes one wonder. I just don't understand throwing the dice at my meal in a city that has incredible selections from credible sources.