The idea is simple – multiple restaurants situated within the same building offering an eclectic mix of dishes while sharing a single kitchen.
Sharing the kitchen allows for proprietors to purchase ingredients and tailor multiple menus which overlap between the ingredients to keep costs down and offer a wider array of dishes to customers.
In addition, the delivery-only style of ghost kitchens eliminates the need for multiple leases and helps the restaurants' bottom line.
One relatively new ghost kitchen location in Guelph is currently home to nine individual online-only restaurants, each with its own unique brand.
James Rilett, vice-president, Central Canada at Restaurants Canada, said the idea is both good and bad, however, he believes the idea of ghost kitchens is here to stay.
“It’s something that has been growing even before the pandemic, but I think like a lot of good ideas the pandemic has spread them along,” said Rilett.
“People obviously think it may be competition to traditional brick and mortar restaurants, but there are some good sides as well. Some restaurants, particularly chains, are able to move some of the delivery of the business to a ghost kitchen and free up the brick and motor restaurants to serve customers.
"I think we haven't seen the array of what can be done with this, so it will be very interesting in the years to come how this will evolve," said Rilett.
This new trend has landed in Guelph as one downtown restaurant has a deeper backstory than the store frontage alone.
Since September 2020, 27 Macdonell St. has hosted a variety of different restaurants all while maintaining the single storefront.
Inside Rebel GRK there is also Rebel Wings & Snack Bar, The Grand Pierogi, The Grand Poutinerie, Burger Boss Po'boys and Poutines, The Big Cheezy Gourmet Grilled Cheese and Macaroni, Uncle Harry's Cheesecake and Cookie Dough and Donair Ltd.
Owner George, who asked to be identified by his first name only for privacy reasons, has brought the idea of a ghost kitchen – sometimes called a virtual restaurant – to Guelph with an innovative approach that is re-imagining the traditional restaurant scene.
The idea of the virtual restaurant comes from the fact that there is no official storefront for the restaurant, rather it exists only online and provides take-out and delivery services with no actual indoor dining space.
“To make this concept work you need a lot of crossover ingredients, so you would multi-use say the same pork we use for pork souvlaki we use for pulled pork poutine, just in a different application,” said George. “The preparation is different but it’s the one same meat to multi-use as many times as possible.”
By tailoring the menus of the restaurants to overlap as much as possible, the ghost kitchens can keep overhead costs low while expanding their patron base by catering to different palates.
“With the pandemic, we were hurting, we were hurting big time, it was hard to stay afloat and just having Greek food wasn’t cutting it,” said George. “If you have 100 people as the piece of a pie, and 85 people don’t feel like Greek food you’ve just lost 85 per cent of the pie.”
George said with the virtual kitchens online and the capabilities to reach customers the chances of losing customers becomes less because you can offer different meals that will individually suit the needs of the customers.
By providing families with the option of virtually ordering from multiple restaurants and from the same location, George says they can ensure high-quality meals are delivered to customers that suit everyone’s needs.
