The authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, a book about, well, modernizing the restaurant customer experience, met when they were colleagues at Kitchen United (KU), a virtual kitchen provider that allows brick and mortar and virtual brands to execute their food for the evolving nature of food consumption.
“When we were at Kitchen United we built the first models for kitchen site selection, worked on the types of brands and concepts that would make the most sense to launch out of a particular facility” says Carl Orsbourn, co-author of the book.
Despite all the in-house work being done at KU, it wasn’t evident that all restaurants really understood what to make of the shift to digital.
“You have to understand this was pre-COVID,” explains Meredith Sandland, “and even large brands were scratching their heads about what to make of this ghost kitchen category. So we talked to, I don’t know, probably a hundred brands, and maybe six or seven really understood the magnitude of change that the ghost kitchen model would have on the restaurant industry.”
What Carl and Meredith observed was that most brands who showed interest were only lightly toeing the ghost kitchen waters, but wading no deeper.
“We were like ‘Hey, this is going to be a huge growth vector for the industry, analogous to e-commerce for retail, and you have to commit if you want to transition successfully’,” says Carl. But many of the operators just sat on the fence and tinkered, if they even made it that far.
We all know what happened next.
In Spring of 2020 COVID shows up and just like that, it becomes literally illegal to serve food indoors in some states.
As Meredith recalls, “Restaurants are the second largest private employer in the United States. All of a sudden an entire industry turns upside down, almost overnight. All of a sudden a lot of people realized that this whole off-premises dining might not be a fad, and in essence every restaurant in America was a ghost kitchen for a short period of time.”
COVID accelerated the necessary adaptations and what Carl and Meredith thought would manifest by 2025 pulled forward to 2020.
Fast forward 18 months and restaurant operators are giving ghost kitchens the attention they deserve. But with ever-increasing digital complexity, restaurants now need to think through all the experiences consumers expect when engaging restaurants.
And many are still struggling.
“Larger brands are now more than toeing the digital waters, but they have the resources to dedicate to these initiatives. Smaller chains and independents are being left behind, so we decided to write Delivering the Digital Restaurant with this audience in mind.”
Today the target audience for Delivering the Digital Restaurant knows that they need to do something, they just don’t know what to do, or where to start. “Smaller operators are being flooded with technologies and don’t know what to do,” laments Carl. “We’re hoping our experience in building virtual kitchens and brands will help these groups successfully navigate the transition under way.”
To craft an informative narrative Carl and Meredith share stories from the learnings of both larger and smaller operators who have navigated the transition to digital. They also interviewed dozens of software providers to map the ever-evolving marketplace of digital solutions.
“We hope to give operators what they need to move forward, but ultimately the difference between success and failure comes down to the operator and how quickly they test, learn, and iterate. If an operator doesn’t put enough effort into testing then they won’t have good enough data to know what to adjust,” Meredith shares.
What the book makes clear is that the definition of what it means to be a restaurant is fundamentally changing. While operators were once restricted by the physical number of tables inside their restaurant, they’re now empowered to service a sizeable number of people within a 3-5 mile radius and increase the throughput velocity of their kitchen.
“We’ve seen one company have success with six virtual brands in a 400 square foot kitchen. That’s a lot of volume, so menu items have to be carefully crafted for fast production and hold up to transport. You have to remember that pizza wasn’t originally portable; Taco Bell’s food wasn’t portable either until the drive-thru came along, and once it did, menu and productization changed to meet the evolving needs of the consumer.” Meredith should know as she previously served as Chief Development Officer of Taco Bell.
The book contains some other gems, like how to convert third party customers to first party (hint: put QR codes on all of your packaging and incentivize first party ordering on the customer’s next engagement), and why treating your delivery driver well pays huge dividends for the customer experience.
We hope the intended audience of smaller restaurant operators picks up the book before they’re relegated to making food for someone else’s virtual brand. Carl and Meredith remain optimistic that restaurants will self-educate and learn what Delivering The Digital Restaurant has to offer before the door is fully closed.
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