Have you ever logged in to your favorite food delivery app and noticed a new restaurant available that you’ve never seen or heard of? Oftentimes, these restaurants operate out of cloud kitchens (commercial kitchen spaces that are designed for delivery only). There are no tables, chairs, or waitstaff —just a kitchen to cook food that is delivered directly to your door.
Cloud Kitchens are affordable, flexible, and efficient. They are part of a booming industry, one that is estimated to be worth over $70 billion globally by 2027. In this article, we’ll break down all the amazing benefits of starting a cloud kitchen and how to get started.
How Do Cloud Kitchens Work?
Cloud kitchens typically operate out of commercial kitchen spaces or existing restaurants and offer delivery-only. Customers can order food directly from the restaurant’s website or through third-party apps like Postmates, Grubhub, and UberEats. The order is then prepared at the cloud kitchen and then picked up by a delivery driver.
What Are The Benefits?
There are so many reasons why we believe cloud kitchens are the future of food and why we’ve invested our resources into helping independent restaurants take advantage of this growing industry.
Delivery is Popular
Technology advancements have made it so that anybody can order any type of food delivered to their home. Getting dinner delivered is a huge stress reliever, as many people with fast-paced lifestyles don’t have the extra time to cook a large meal every night. In a 2020 survey, 72% of adults said they order food for delivery within the past six months, and over half of those were ordered via a third-party delivery app. Food delivery will only continue to gain traction, and restaurants that don’t offer delivery options are losing out on a huge opportunity for profit.
Low Start-Up Costs
It’s no secret that opening up a restaurant is expensive. There are so many factors to consider: the menu, the ambiance, the staff, the theme, space, and not to mention all the required licensing and permits. These expenses pile up quickly, and it can take months before you’re ready to even welcome customers into your restaurant.
Cloud kitchens are great because the start-up cost is extremely low. They can operate out of existing restaurant kitchens or commercial kitchen spaces. The only real expenses are staff and ingredients. When using a pre-developed restaurant brand concept like the ones we offer at Nextbite, the menu and the themes are already developed, tested, and proven to be popular. It’s so easy to get started and begin making a profit right off the bat.
Increased Focus On Food
How many times have you been to a restaurant with beautiful interior design and a flashy menu only to feel underwhelmed once your food arrives? Cloud kitchens allow businesses to focus solely on the quality of the food. This means delivering a higher quality product without the other distractions of a typical restaurant environment.
Higher Efficiency
Cloud kitchen restaurants are extremely streamlined and efficient. Typically, they have smaller menus and fewer staff members. Cloud kitchens only have to worry about prep and packaging, meaning the food goes out faster, and the customer gets the food delivered to them quicker.
Safety
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, eateries all around the globe were forced to shut their doors and rely on delivery-only to stay afloat. Indoor dining has been shown to correlate with spikes in coronavirus cases and as a result, many people have decided to avoid dining out altogether for the foreseeable future. Together, Cloud kitchens and food delivery services have provided a safe way for restaurants and customers to interact with each other.
More Sales With More Brands
Another benefit of a cloud kitchen is that it allows you to serve several menus from the same location. So this means a pizza place, a sushi bar, and a salad stand can all operate out of the same space. This provides customers with more options and provides restaurants with more flexibility. You’ll be able to experiment with different concepts while increasing your profits.
How To Start Your Own Cloud Kitchen
Now that you understand all the benefits of running a cloud kitchen, you’re probably excited to get started. But there are a few steps you must take to ensure your cloud kitchen is as successful as possible.
Develop Your Concept
The first step when opening any type of restaurant is to develop a clear concept and menu. You want to make sure the type of food you’re serving is relevant to your target demographic. Consider your location and the types of people that live nearby. Do you live in a laid-back, beachside community or a busy city populated by working adults? This will all affect the type of food you’ll want to serve.
If you’re not experienced in brand development, partnering with a company that has pre-established brands is a great idea. Nextbite simplifies the process for you by offering researched, pre-developed restaurant concepts that can be implemented in a flash.
Secure Your Location
The location and actual physical space are important factors when starting a cloud kitchen. You want to make sure your cloud kitchen’s location is near a large enough community. You also want a large and open kitchen space that is designed for efficient food prep and has ample room for your kitchen staff.
Invest In the Right Tech
Once you have your concept and your kitchen space secured, you’ll want to decide how to start receiving online orders. Orders can flood in during rushes like lunch and dinner, so you’ll want to invest in technology to ensure that nothing gets missed.
At Nextbite, we partner with Ordermark, the industry’s leading platform for managing online orders. Ordermark allows kitchens to consolidate all of their orders into one system. Having a Point-of-Sales system like Ordermark allows your kitchen staff to work in an organized flow and prepare food in the correct order.
Market Yourself
Marketing is crucial in getting your restaurant name out there. Since customers aren’t able to see your restaurant space, you’re relying solely on marketing to get the word out about your business. Nextbite offers branding, outreach campaigns, and promotional support for our partners.
Conclusion
Cloud kitchens are a booming business, and more and more are popping up every single day. They provide restaurant owners with flexibility, efficiency, and better profit margins. With a company like Nextbite, it’s easier to get started than you might think! Don’t miss out on profits and start tapping into the food delivery market that exists in your community.
To learn more about our pre-developed restaurant concepts and how we support our business partners, visit us online here.
Sources:
https://restaurant.org/downloads/pdfs/business/third-party-delivery-survey-results