Food trucks are also usually founded by a person with a vision and passion. Someone who wants to do something completely different with their life, a cook who thinks they have what it takes to go out on their own, etc, and that can be something that goes beyond even the reputational incentives.

Certainly not always, but I'd wager far more commonly than a generic ghost kitchen out of a shared kitchen with an Applebee's or out of the back of a cheap warehouse district.

In a food truck I can usually see the person cooking the food as well as the person giving it to me.

I will also eat the food close to the truck, meaning it's very little effort for me to go back and say "oi, this is shit, mate".

In a ghost kitchen you have zero way to actually give feedback to the kitchen itself.

Food trucks seem like they would involve more cost than a "ghost kitchen" and the branding on the truck especially will follow you around. If a ghost kitchen sucks, there is no cost in changing their name and maybe even their menu and continuing their bullshit. But there are real costs in re-branding and vinyling your food truck and food trucks deal with face to face business.

Don't forget the fake reviews (AI or not) and the soulless marketing campaign!

It always felt like a weird business model to me. If you lack a physical presence, the only thing you have over a decent prepared section at the grocery store is variety (and freshness, at least in theory). You don't even have convenience on your side since Instacart exists, and because the lower rent was predicated on leasing in more remote areas, the food is even less likely to be warm by the time it arrives than if you got groceries delivered.

And for the providers of the ghost kitchens, while they are selling a shovel of sorts, their bet was there would be a continuing market for their shovels. That space isn't likely to be used for any other restaurants because of the lack of foot traffic, but it also isn't likely to be used in large-scale food production because the facilities usually aren't large enough to be re-tooled for anything beyond catering companies. Commercial kitchen build-outs are not cheap, so investing in large scale small kitchen spaces is a risky bet.

Yup, this is a crucial detail that the article sort of assumes the reader already knows: the companies being discussed are not actually cooking the food. They are ghost kitchen facility providers. Like WeWork for takeout/delivery cooks. And, surprise: they don’t print money any better than WeWork did.

> They also scammed the operators. It was an Uber-esque ploy.

Should be no surprise. CloudKitchens, even, was founded by none other than Travis Kalanick.

It really seems like it should be possible, but you have to put in the effort to develop recipes, buy minimum quality ingredients, and train the staff. Old school diners, especially Greek diners in the NYC area, used to be famous for their wide-ranging menus—burgers, spaghetti, spanakopita, chopped liver, etc.—and the food was generally pretty good. Cheesecake Factory has built something similar on a national level, and workplace cafeterias often aren't bad either, certainly not at the level of a ghost kitchen.

I think tech founders often underestimate what it takes to build a food business and what the margins are like and then start to cut corners to make the business viable.

The selling point was efficiency, not quality. It follows that the result wasn't quality.

> Just assembly-line cooking with zero connection to customers.

And this is how it works in many (not all) American airports. Local restaurants put their brands on the signs, but the food is prepared by probationary employees of Acme Baggage Displacement And Cafeteria Management Corp.

Shops that run 100 different brand names usually do a spectrum of quality and pricing ranging from great quality and great prices to high prices with terrible quality. You might for example put a very similar item (if not exactly the same) on two different menu cards where customer B gets twice as much for half the price. B is the stability of the project while A is a disposable brand. If you can corner the market A conditions the customer to think B is a great deal.