This is a concept that has highly grown since the health crisis. Virtual restaurants, also known as ghost kitchens, are accessible only through internet platforms. In other words, it is impossible to eat in or even order takeout without using an app. Densely populated areas and low density restaurants are the preferred areas for these dark kitchens. These are often industrial areas, where the employees who work there do not necessarily have time between noon and midday to get something to eat. Thus, these places allow customers from more or less far away to pick up their lunch or dinner by placing an order in just a few clicks via their smartphone or computer.
Intrinsically, these establishments are linked to online ordering aggregators. With no room to accommodate customers, finding a dark kitchen is simpler, since it only needs to have enough space to accommodate a professional kitchen, a cold room and the staff, the chef and his team. Expenses are lower, as there are no servers and the food is purchased in bulk, thus reducing costs. As in a traditional restaurant, the order is then entrusted to a deliveryman to be delivered to you as quickly as possible. To do this, couriers can use cargo bikes to store as many orders as possible, deliver to customers more quickly and avoid multiple trips between the virtual restaurant and all the delivery locations. Thanks to the new cargo bikes with refrigeration cells, it is also possible to deliver goods that are more sensitive to temperature during transport.
