HOUSTON, TEXAS, (DECEMBER 18th 2023) | CloudKitchens is opening its 3rd facility in Houston, TX.

While the majority of consumers are not sold on ghost kitchens, a significant portion relishes the reprieve that the all-digital model gives from face-to-face interaction.By the NumbersThe PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Connected Dining: The Robot Will Take Your Order Now,” drew from a survey of a census-balanced survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. consumers to gauge their opinions about different restaurant technologies and explore what factors made them feel enthusiastic, curious or hesitant.The study found that, among the roughly half (48%) of consumers who are interested in virtual kitchens, 30% of them reported that this interest comes at least in part from the fact that these digital eateries do not require any interaction with other people.The Data in ContextOverall, the ghost kitchen space is evolving. For instance, major restaurant aggregator Uber Eats made dramatic changes to how it handles virtual brands earlier this year, instating new regulations and cutting 8,000 online storefronts from its platform.“With the boom in virtual restaurants over the past several years, we’ve noticed a wide range of approaches to creating virtual restaurant brands,” John Mullenholz, Uber’s head of virtual restaurants and dark kitchens for the U.S. and Canada, said in a statement.Some brands are shifting away from ghost kitchens towards more traditional channels. Take, for instance, Brinker International, the parent company of Chili’s Grill & Bar, Maggiano’s Little Italy and two virtual brands, which shared earlier this year that it is turning its focus away from its “unprofitable” virtual brands, according to CEO Kevin Hochman, toward its brick-and-mortar business.Moreover, ghost kitchen startup CloudKitchens, led by Uber co-founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, has also come on hard times this year, reportedly firing staff and closing warehouses. Its buildings were said to be only at half capacity at the end of the first quarter, with the company failing to win enough restaurant contracts to fuel sales

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, (NOVEMBER 15th 2023) | CloudKitchens is opening it's first ghost kitchen in Sacramento!

Eğer sektöre hakim değilseniz, “bulut mutfak” kavramı sizin için herhangi bir çağrışım yapmıyor olabilir. Ancak bu sektör son zamanlarda, özellikle pandemi ve sonrasına tekabül eden dönemde, fazlasıyla ilgi görmeye başladı. Her şeyden önce gelin, bulut mutfak kavramını kısa ve öz bir şekilde açıklamaya çalışalım. Bilmeyenler ve yeniden hatırlamak isteyenler için: Bulut mutfak nedir?. Bulut mutfak için yemek siparişlerini odağına alan ve yalnızca teslimat üzerine hizmet veren bir profesyonel mutfak türü diyebiliriz. Bu mutfaklar genellikle restoran müşterilerine açık değil, yani gidip “biz burada oturup yemeğimizi yiyelim” diyemiyorsunuz

Notably, when CloudKitchens bought the building in 2018, investment firm Goldman Sachs invested $100 million in the project.

They never did replace the dine-in restaurant but ghost kitchens — kitchens that are not attached to a specific restaurant — are a permanent, and growing feature, of the hospitality industry. Today, early-stage startups founded in the last couple of years are the driving force of this cloud retail infrastructure segment. VC investment funneled more than $1 billion into ghost kitchens in the last 12 months, according to preliminary data from AgFunder. A lot of that was thanks to Uber founder Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens, which closed a mega-round from Microsoft and others. Nonetheless, a healthy supply of early-stage deals continues to flow in, and restaurants — particularly large chains — keep signing up to the concept. [Disclosure: AFN’s parent company is AgFunder.]

A lobbying organization with apparent ties to former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s dark kitchen startup is preparing to go to war against food delivery apps.

CloudKitchens reportedly raised a total of $850 million in debt and equity financing from multiple backers in the round, though its unclear exactly how much Microsoft invested.