Rendering courtesy of CloudKitchens
CloudKitchens' ghost kitchen is located at 2360 Hampton, one half mile south of Interstate 44.
Ghost kitchens continue to materialize across St. Louis—and in a big way.
CloudKitchens, which has dozens of shared ghost kitchens either open or in development across the U.S., will open St. Louis' first such dedicated facility at 2360 Hampton (a half mile south of Interstate 44), a location selected for the number of potential customers within a 15-minute drive.
Rendering courtesy of CloudKitchens
The single-story building on Hampton can accommodate up to 23 kitchens, from 220 to 640 square feet each. At present, the kitchen areas are roughed in and the exhaust hoods are in place, ready for tenant specific equipment.
It's a well-engineered operation: A partitioned walk-in cooler runs the length of the building; 16 of the kitchens come with a walk-in refrigerator. There are heated and refrigerated areas for hot and cold food; a real-time reader board displays each order’s status. Three to four tenant employees per kitchen do the prepping and cooking; CloudKitchens' support teams run the orders to the delivery drivers.
Compared to opening a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant, the model requires a small footprint (220-plus square feet rather than 2,000 and up), less capital investment ($30,000+ versus $500,000 or more), fewer employees (four instead of 25 or more), and less time to launch (six weeks, rather than a minimum of six months).
Rendering courtesy of CloudKitchens
A sample ghost kitchen
CloudKitchens' ghost kitchen model is considered a turnkey solution licensing agreement that doesn’t require a complicated, pages-long lease. Mark Clarkson, a broker with Manor Real Estate, the company representing CloudKitchens, adds that lease terms can be for as little as one year (with increments of a year or more) versus the standard three- to five-year terms. And if the concept doesn’t resonate for whatever reason, the operator can move on with minimal loss. (Any interested parties should contact Clarkson or Caleb Anthonis at Manor Real Estate for details.)
The Background
Although the concept of a ghost kitchen began before the pandemic, the delivery-only model took off in 2020, as online orders surged when restaurants scrambled to reinvent themselves. Operating within existing restaurants, limited-menu ghost kitchens were effective in helping keep the struggling businesses afloat when dining rooms were closed or seating was reduced.
When restaurants reopened and then returned to full capacity, many local ghost kitchens closed, as diminished staff scrambled to keep up with pent-up demand for in-house dining. The original ghost kitchen model, however, was to operate several concepts out of a shared space in a centrally located but affordable standalone location (oftentimes in industrial park warehouses), with third-party delivery companies supplying the drivers. In some cases, as with newly opened Kitchen Clayton (7923 Forsyth) in Clayton, customers can also use an onsite kiosk to place orders and/or pick up orders directly.
Similar to a food truck, the shared ghost kitchen is an efficient way for a new or fledgling operator to test the waters or for an existing restaurant to expand its market and/or experiment with new menu items, as well as to meet the demands of today’s delivery-partial diner. Simply put, they’re an inexpensive source for added revenue. Larger catering orders can be diverted to the ghost kitchen as well, so as not to hamstring the kitchens at the restaurants’ other locations. And ghost kitchen-based jobs are thought to be easier to fill than other restaurant jobs, because staffers don't have to interact with (occasionally unruly) customers.
