Kansas City restaurants are adding key ingredients to their business models, tapping into burgeoning consumer trends.
In a national report, "Restaurant of the Future: A Vision Evolves," Deloitte highlighted the trends — from ghost kitchens to frictionless digital experiences. Deloitte surveyed 1,000 Americans who had eaten at a restaurant within the last three months.
Digital experiences
Demand for frictionless digital experiences is a top trend. Fifty-seven percent of consumers ordering takeout or delivery prefer to use a digital app, and 67% of on-premise diners prefer to order food digitally.
The evolving consumer trends spurred Kansas City-based Blip Roasters to partner with RDY on launching the coffee shop's first digital ordering app, which uses geolocation technology to keep orders fresh and hot when patrons arrive. Once a customer is within a mile of Blip, the app notifies employees to start making the order. Upon arrival, app customers can skip the line to pick up their drink.
Before the RDY app, Blip patrons could order merchandise and coffee beans online, but not made-to-order drinks.
"The trends are people wanting faster service and less in-person interaction. Everybody's on their phones more and using more and more apps to order food and drinks," Blip owner Ian Davis said. "I think that specialty coffee has been a bit behind the times with that."
Davis cited the rising popularity of Starbucks' mobile app, which accounted for 26% of the Seattle-based company's total U.S. orders during the second quarter. That's up 8% compared with the same quarter a year prior, according to GeekWire.
"We've definitely seen more orders come through our website for pickup of coffee beans over the last year or two," Davis said.
Since Blip doesn't have a drive-thru, the mobile app can streamline orders and give time-crunched individuals and commuters more incentive to head to Blip.
"Hopefully, it makes us a little more competitive with the larger chains that have drive-thrus or an app," Davis said.
Ghost kitchens
Nearly 80% of consumers said they're apt to order from ghost kitchens — up 20% from a year ago and 32% from two years ago, Deloitte reports.
Kansas City-based ghost kitchen Cosmo Burger ranked on Feast magazine's list of best new restaurants of 2021 and now plans to open a second location this year at the Lenexa Public Market.
Summit Restaurant Group, which includes restaurant brands such as Third Street Social and Summit Grill, experimented with its first ghost kitchen last year. Restaurateurs Andy Lock and Domhnall Malloy launched Smash-N-Nash, which operates out of the Summit Grill and Third Street Social locations. The menu is intentionally narrow so as not to disrupt current operations and features a smash burger, Nashville hot chicken sandwich, chicken tenders, tater tots, fries and a jumbo chocolate chip cookie.
So far, the ghost kitchen has met performance expectations, and employees have been able to execute both the ghost kitchen and main restaurant operations "pretty flawlessly," Summit Restaurant Group Director of Operations Amber Craig said. Sometimes, however, order surges create challenges with finding enough flattop space.
Craig said ghost kitchens are ideal for restaurants looking to expand their footprint and experiment with their menu.
"It's allowing us to think outside the box as we look forward to future concept development," she said. "For the foreseeable future, we are continuing to move forward with Smash-N-Nash. It really adds some incremental dollars to our current sales volume, so there's no reason to turn it off."
Convenience and takeout
Even though dining rooms are open again, takeout and delivery orders continue to climb. More than 60% of consumers are ordering takeout or delivery at least once a week, compared with 29% a year ago and 18% before the pandemic. They also crave faster service and convenient options that maintain the same quality and freshness as dine-in service.
Stroud's, which is known for its fried chicken, can have lengthy wait times for dine-in service. Owner KC Hopps Ltd. rolled out the brand's first express concept in 2020 that skipped dine-in seating. Stroud's Express debuted in Lee's Summit and offers only curbside pickup, carryout and delivery. Customers are encouraged to order ahead online.
"With the changes in the hospitality industry in 2020, it's important to consider your current service models, and be able to adapt for the future needs of our guests," Bethany Neal, KC Hopps vice president of sales, marketing and technology, said during a previous interview.
The new express concept became so popular that KC Hopps later opened a second location in Mission.
Tyler and Monica Morrison also decided to launch a to-go focused restaurant called Scratch Gourmet Express & Catering. The Prairie Village restaurant's made-from-scratch menu changes weekly and offers comfort food "elevated to a whole new level." The hot, refrigerated, or frozen meals to-go can be ordered the day of or days in advance.
“I love restaurants, but Covid has definitely showed us that it's hard to have a full capacity restaurant. It's hard to staff,” Tyler Morrison said during a previous interview. “We strategically built this restaurant without a dining room, which I think Covid dictated. … We can handle it all with a very small team. We have four people on our staff and we’re able to facilitate a full dinner in full restaurant-style meals.”
