COVID-19 decimated the restaurant industry and forced it to adapt. With takeout orders expected to stay higher than they were before the pandemic, businesses are adapting again
At Vancouver’s Pidgin restaurant, there was a time when a single sleeve of takeout containers would last for up to a year.
Within weeks, two companies with experience creating logistics and e-commerce platforms approached him, and they created an online ordering and delivery service called FromTo.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail So restaurants are now taking matters into their own hands. That means controlling the delivery process themselves, or abandoning delivery options altogether. Others are building cost-efficient ghost kitchens, locations that only prepare takeout, to keep costs to a bare minimum.
“We are putting out a high-end product and we’re also trying to provide a really special experience to the people that are within our four walls,” she said. “We had lineups for them, because they were very Instagram-popular. I had friends texting me to see if I could save them some,” co-owner Shaun Layton recalls.
“I still don’t think I’d ever use the big delivery apps, but it’s on my mind for future projects to be able to sell stuff out the back door, as well as have people in the front door,” he said. ”Because it is the future, and I understand that things do change.” Kitchen Hub’s first location opened in Etobicoke in west Toronto weeks before the pandemic began. It now has three such food halls, with plans for at least 50 across Canada. The tenants are responsible for paying commissions to the delivery apps. But ghost kitchens can be more cost-effective, because without a dining room the real-estate footprint is much smaller and fewer staff members are needed.
At Kitchen Hub, orders from PAI awaid pickup; Jen Dowd, general manager of Cabanos, and Mauro Viseu, chef at Gusto 101, prepare meals.Weeks into the pandemic, Vesuvio, an Italian restaurant in Toronto’s west end, closed after 63 years in business. A group of employees decided to open their own pizzeria that fall.
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