E-commerce has swept industries from food to fashion, with more and more people turning to digital apps and delivery services to get the products they desire. The companies taking advantage of this digital shift have seen great success. Doordash in particular has consistently seen 20-30% growth year over year since 2020, with customers around the world taking advantage of the convenient delivery of restaurant-quality foods. Considering this persistent economic trend, it was only a matter of time before restaurants found their own unique participatory solution.
CloudKitchens is that solution. Seeing the delivery-focused shift in the food industry, CloudKitchens was founded to provide restaurateurs with ghost kitchens optimized for delivery. As a commercial real estate and technology company, CloudKitchens allows restaurants to cut out the front end of a full brick-and-mortar location and instead focus on being a delivery business.
The value is self-evident; CloudKitchens reviews well with their partners, with many crediting CloudKitchens for their success during the 2020 pandemic. Take it from the CEO Laura Dickey of Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, one such partner: “When you can enter a new market and accelerate profitability, with lower overhead, less complication, in a model that’s already proven successful... that’s an opportunity you want to take advantage of.”
The CloudKitchens Service Offering
CloudKitchens offers restaurateurs a way to focus on cooking delicious food and directly delivering it to customers, skipping the expensive middlemen of a dine-in space, wait, staff, and greeters. The company does this by providing commercial ghost kitchens to the partner to get started at a fraction of the up-front capital required of a brick-and-mortar location. CloudKitchens handles various support duties—cleaning, delivery support, maintenance, security, logistics, fulfillment—to ensure that orders are delivered on time, letting the partner focus on the food and the growth of their business. For ease of use, all orders can be managed from a single tablet with a streamlined interface.
One of the most significant value propositions a restaurant can find in CloudKitchens’ offering is the incredible difference in upfront cost, both monetarily and in terms of time investment. CloudKitchens can get a private ghost kitchen established in mere weeks, ready for the partner’s chosen menu and a small team of cooks (usually four or fewer) to start fulfilling orders and filling stomachs—a far cry from the many months needed to prepare a brick-and-mortar buildout. Similarly, a CloudKitchens ghost kitchen can get started with as little as $30 thousand, which is a scarce fraction of the expected $1 million (or more) required of a traditional approach.
CloudKitchens partners with a variety of restaurateurs across the country, including entrepreneurs, food trucks, national franchises, and local restaurants. Its service offering is a cost-effective boon for establishing new brands and food companies or expanding existing ones. These kinds of virtual kitchens and ghost kitchens represent a cost-cutting model that has a high-profit potential, and CloudKitchens makes that potential accessible to many who would otherwise be unable to break into the industry.
CloudKitchens Educational Support
CloudKitchens is establishing itself as a game-changer in the restaurant and food delivery space, and that naturally comes with questions about a variety of unknowns and concerns. Fortunately, the staff at CloudKitchens knows this and has a number of support resources available to current and prospective partners alike. On their website are two such repositories: the official blog, and the list of detailed white papers with detailed steps and guides to help partners find success.
CloudKitchens’ blog is regularly updated with new articles covering a range of topics that might be of interest to any budding or established restaurateur. Everything from delivery route optimization strategies to innovative menu concepts, to ensuring health and safety regulatory compliance is discussed clearly for anyone to read. With several articles published each month, CloudKitchens consistently provides free information to help its partners.
For more technical information, you can find white papers, e-books, and webinars on CloudKitchens’ website—all detailed guides and technical resources meant to inspire and assist restaurateur partners. From a Free Guide on How To Market Your Restaurant Business Online, to 7 Steps to Maximize Delivery Efficiency for Your Restaurant, CloudKitchens’ white papers are available for download in PDF form. For more involved and nuanced topics, the company has downloadable e-books discussing ghost kitchens, food delivery trends, and guides to scaling business operations.
With the wealth of free, web-based, and downloadable content hosted on CloudKitchens’ website, it’s clear that enabling the success of their partners is the company’s top priority. Ghost kitchens and the delivery-first restaurant business model are relatively new, and anything new comes with questions and concerns. Having a one-stop shop for answers, insights, and guides is a boon to any new or potential partners interested in CloudKitchens’ offering.
CloudKitchens Reviews and Case Studies
CloudKitchens has already worked with a number of partner restaurants that have found consistent success. These success stories and positive partner reviews are also easily accessed on the CloudKitchens reviews website. Indeed, CloudKitchens’ Success Stories page is full of specific case studies highlighting partnerships like the earlier-mentioned Dickey’s Barbecue Pit. There are 13 distinct success story case studies featuring the owners and chefs of varied establishments, covering an array of menus from bakeries and coffee joints, to late-night eateries and pizza places.
Aside from the Success Stories case studies, CloudKitchens also features client spotlights. These interview-style discussions with existing partners dive into the partners’ experiences, going into detail about how CloudKitchens’ service offering affects their business. The most recent spotlight, featuring Happy Holdings, captures the most common refrain amongst these reviews and partnerships. In the words of Happy Holdings owner Wesley Li:
“In terms of our growth trajectory, we are essentially able to double our run rate revenue every year with CloudKitchens. This steady and rapid growth underscores not just the scalability of the CloudKitchens model, but also our ability to adapt and thrive by partnering with CloudKitchens.”
