As restaurants in Wichita continue to confront the lingering impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, a new concept in the food service industry is starting to emerge out of the ashes.
It goes by many names and interpretations, like "ghost kitchen" or "virtual restaurant."
But the general idea is the same: there are no tables, no chairs, no waiters taking orders. Customers either pick it up to go or get food delivered to them by a third-party delivery company — sometimes without even knowing where their meal originated.
Perhaps one of the first to try it out locally are the creators behind the Social Tap Drinkery, a food hall and tap room that anchors two virtual restaurants, Sungrano Pizza and Wheatly's Burgers. Three friends and business partners — Luke Luttrell, Justin Neel and David Hopkins — opened the concept about three months ago, occupying three storefronts in Braeburn Square near 21st and Oliver.
Social Tap virtual kitchens
It's an innovative idea in the Wichita market, but one that is quickly taking off in larger cities on the east and west coasts.
"What it was for was for restaurants or catering companies or pop-ups and startups to have a facility that they could move into, restaurant-ready at a low overhead," said Neel, who had been a long-time manager for Il Vicino in Wichita. "That's kind of the avenue that we started following."
Diners can place orders for Sungrano or Wheatly's online through Toast Tab or at a kiosk inside, but the partners are testing out their concepts without the use of Door Dash or other delivery party. For a more brick-and-mortar experience, patrons at the Social Tap next door can scan a QR code to order the pizza or burgers, instead of interacting with a server.
A true virtual kitchen, though, typically operates inside existing restaurants, sharing employees, equipment and ingredients. A few national brands are testing out those concepts in Wichita.
Diners can order delivery from MrBeast Burger, which operates out of the two On The Border restaurants in Wichita, through either Door Dash or the MrBeast Burger app or website. The burger concept was started by YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, known as "MrBeast" for his over-the-top stunts and charitable giving.
It's one of several celebrity-backed brands from Virtual Dining Concepts, which also has Mariah's Cookies from Mariah Carey, Mario's Tortas Lopez from Mario Lopez and Pauly D's Italian Subs from "Jersey Shore" star Paul D. DelVecchio Jr.
There's also Tender Shack, chicken tenders that are prepared in the kitchen of the Carrabba's on Rock Road and delivered via Door Dash. The new creation from restaurant company Bloomin' Brands, Carrabba's parents company, is now in 725 communities nationwide.
Ultimately, the idea of takeout- or delivery-only food service was thrust to the forefront during the pandemic when dining rooms closed and diners were increasingly eating their food off premises. As a result, restaurant footprints are getting smaller. Add to that rising food costs and an ongoing labor shortage and the idea of a ghost or virtual kitchen appears to be more and more attractive, especially to startups.
The Social Tap creators also had the desire to help incubate new restaurant concepts, Luttrell added.
"For anybody who thinks they've got great food, obviously they think about one day potentially selling that food in a restaurant," said Luttrell, who outside of the virtual kitchen venture is CEO and founder of Next LED, a light display and signage company. "But that's a really risky proposition that a lot of people take on and they fail. With the virtual ghost kitchens, it's an opportunity for restaurants... to try it out and see if the food is as good as you think it is, and be able to do it at a lower cost, a lower risk."
To open a 50-seat restaurant, Neel said it typically costs around $750,000 in initial startup costs. To start a new concept in one of the 500 square-foot spaces in Braeburn Square, it would cost a restaurant owner $20,000.
"You don't have to worry about the footprint, the servers, the utilities for the whole space, the tables, chairs, everything that goes with it," Neel said. "You just focus on the food and getting it out at the pace you can."
Another iteration of the "ghost" concept is a shared kitchen space, where food business can prep their items for farmers markets, food trucks, pick-up or delivery.
Andrew Gough, owner of Reverie Coffee Roasters in Wichita, introduced a shared-use kitchen called the Founders Creative Kitchen a year ago as a way to make use of his coffee shop's kitchen and to bring in much-needed revenue in the midst of the pandemic.
"When 2020 came along and our kitchen went from being super busy to nonexistent, we started thinking outside the box a little bit," Gough said. "It quickly took off and filled up really fast."
The shared kitchen now has four users, who rent out the space at designated times each week to make use of the ovens, mixers, stove tops and refrigeration. There is a pasta maker, for example, a Japanese bakery and an Asian fusion-type kitchen. Gough said he also helps the owners get their commercial license.
"We become more or less a mentorship for people who are getting started. The thing I think we bring to the able is we accelerate decisions it would take to get open," he said.
But Gough says he only has space for so many people. In the last year, he said he's had to turn away probably 40 or 50 people — many of whom are taking an interest in entrepreneurship in the wake of Covid-19.
"People are interested in trying something new and working from home," Gough said. "Perhaps for the first time ever, it has given them some new ideas on what they can do, pick up a new hobby or habit or maybe something they've done before, and they're just looking for a way to do it commercially."
Some of the business owners using Founders Creative Kitchen aspire to one day open their own full-service, brick-and-mortar eatery. Some of them are content on their own, and in that way, don't have to battle the labor shortage that's gripped the restaurant and hospitality industry lately.
"These businesses don't have employees," Gough said. "They're operating by their owners... They're not having to staff an an entire restaurant."
With the Delta variant still surging nationwide, the coronavirus pandemic could still threaten restaurant recovery. But all of the characteristics of ghost and virtual kitchens, though, are built to withstand pandemics, the Social Tap founders say.
"We want to be able to help educate during the pandemic," Neel said. "The big part of it that we had a passion about was being able to help anybody that comes into this industry... Let us use the knowledge that we've learned to help you build, because in the community of Wichita, we love to see things coming in and being successful, as opposed to anything just coming in and not realize how difficult it was and then fizzling it out."
