The Rise and Retreat of Ghost Kitchens

gadallon.substack.com

15 points·JumpCrisscross··5 comments

> customers often felt “catfished” when they discovered their food came from an unbranded, virtual kitchen rather than a reputable restaurant.

This, plus the poor quality, is why I stopped ordering food for delivery entirely. You never know what it's going to be, and even ordering delivery from a real, established restaurant doesn't mean that the food is coming from that restaurant. It just turns everything into a "brand".

Now if I don't want to eat out but want someone to make my meal for me, I order for pickup from the restaurant.

I don't see how MealCo is proposing anything that will change that equation for me.

as a side note: pickup is also better for the restaurant, because they don't have to pay a cut to the delivery service. If you like your local restaurants and want to support them, order pickup instead of delivery.

Unamusingly, there have been instances of Seamless and similar setting up virtual storefronts online for small local restaurants, and then demanding a cut after a phone call order went routed via them. I have caught this a couple of times and have had to work a bit to find the actual restaurant's contact info to place an order.

AI picture... am I the only one who is kind of disappointed at these AI generated illustrations? At least, when you hover over them, they should display what the AI was prompted with to make them.

It was meant as a joke. I just wrote Cloud Kitchen.

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