Ghost Kitchen

Ghost Kitchen is a commercial kitchen that produces food exclusively for delivery — no dining room, no walk-up service, no physical storefront for customers. Orders come in through third-party platforms (Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub), the operator's own ordering site, or direct phone, and food leaves the building via delivery driver only.

The term is sometimes used interchangeably with "cloud kitchen" or "dark kitchen," though there are subtle distinctions in industry usage: a ghost kitchen is typically operator-owned (you run your own kitchen), a cloud kitchen typically refers to a shared commercial facility where multiple operators rent space (CloudKitchens, REEF, Kitchen United), and dark kitchen tends to be used in markets outside North America for the same concept.

Operationally, ghost kitchens optimize for throughput per square foot rather than revenue per seat. A 1,200 sq ft ghost kitchen producing $60-80K of monthly revenue is delivering more revenue per square foot than most full-service restaurants, because the entire footprint is production rather than seating, restrooms, bar, and front-of-house circulation.

For financing purposes, lenders treat ghost kitchens as commercial restaurant operations with a delivery-only revenue mix. Underwriting focuses on the third-party platform revenue (which is documentable through platform statements), the equipment as collateral, and the operator's track record. The absence of a dining room is not a financing penalty with lenders who understand the model — but it can be one with lenders who don't.