A Final Thought: Ghost Kitchens

As you may know, Mimi Magazine was founded on the principle of supporting local businesses to ensure that residents and visitors to Northeast Ohio have substantial choice in innovative, unique companies you cannot find in every city in America. National chains, Mimi often says, “are like vanilla wafers. They offend no one, they inspire no one, yet they are consumed by the billions.”

Today, I am setting aside my usual mild demeanor in this column to bring attention to an ongoing trend that could have a negative effect on our region—turning Northeast Ohio’s diverse local restaurant scene into a land of bland offerings.

It’s almost Halloween, and while you may not believe in ghosts, it’s time to realize we are surrounded by “ghost kitchens.”

Last week, a friend of mine used the DoorDash app to order a pizza and discovered what appeared to be a new, locally owned restaurant called Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings. When he saw the address, he became suspicious and googled it.

There was no “Pasqually’s” at that address. Instead, it was a Chuck E. Cheese.

That’s right. Had my friend ordered a pizza from Pasqually’s, it would have been made in the Chuck E. Cheese kitchen. That’s because Chuck E. Cheese owns and operates this virtual brand on DoorDash, allowing it to compete disingenuously with real locally owned restaurants.

And ol’ Chuck is not alone. Depending on where you live, if you search DoorDash (and sometimes Uber Eats) for various styles of food, you may see these brands, too:

• The Meltdown, which serves grilled cheese sandwiches, and The Burger Den are not local restaurants. They are both virtual brands of Denny’s.
• It’s Just Wings is really just Chili’s (Brinker International).
• Tender Shack is a ghost kitchen brand of Outback Steakhouse (Bloomin’ Brands).
• The Wing Experience is Smokey Bones.
• Conviction Chicken & Wings is TGI Fridays.
• Wild Burger is Buffalo Wild Wings.

These virtual kitchen brands come and go so regularly that you may not find them for long. For example, on DoorDash, The Wing Dept., a ghost kitchen brand of Red Robin, reads “not active.”

So, what is going on here?

First, please know that ghost kitchens can be a good thing for unaffiliated local chefs and food truck operators trying to break through. These small entrepreneurs can save money by sharing a kitchen to offer more choices to local diners. But when national chains use ghost kitchens to deceive us into believing their food is prepared by different restaurants, that’s a problem for at least four reasons:

1. Diners can unknowingly order food from a restaurant they would never order from because the restaurant is using a different brand name.
2. National chains can flood the DoorDash and Uber Eats apps with dozens of ghost brands that drown out genuine, locally owned restaurants.
3. When a chain restaurant’s ghost kitchen begins getting bad reviews, the operators can simply shut it down and invent a fresh, new name.
4. Ghost kitchens don’t require a separate facility, additional employees, independent health department inspections, or many of the costs associated with operating a unique restaurant. This creates unfair competition that ultimately leads to lower quality and reduced choice.

There is enough “fakeness” in the world today without restaurant brands we know (and often trust) professing to be what they are not. It’s one more step on the slippery slope of our one day having no institutions to trust.

If you order from a food delivery app, do your homework. To be somewhat transparent, DoorDash does label ghost kitchens with the words “Virtual Kitchen,” albeit in very small type. Look for those words, and let’s not assume every new brand we see is a groovy, new local hot spot worthy of our support.

Sometimes they’re just ghosts.

Mitch@MimiVanderhaven.com