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.