I first heard about ‘Dark Kitchens’ when I met Ian Halfon, CEO of Slick Restaurant Group, last week, his company having opened Cape Town’s newest Dark Kitchen on New Church Street in the City centre. Also known as ‘virtual kitchens’, ‘ghost kitchens’, or ‘cloud kitchens’, Dark Kitchens are independent operations creating food for a multitude of brands, such as the Slick Restaurant Group is doing, having opened its operation with five restaurant brands initially, and more planned, all food prepared from one Central kitchen, with obvious cost benefits. Food is ordered online, for delivery to the customer. 

I wrote about the Slick Restaurant Group and it opening a Food Delivery and eventually a Food Collection Service from its new City-based Central Kitchen for its existing Balducci’s, Gibson’s Gourmet Burgers, and Wings & Things restaurant brands, all restaurants based in the Waterfront. By the time Halfon has unlocked each of his restaurants, getting the water, electricity and gas stoves going, there will be little if any profit made based on the current Level 3 permitted Food and Alcohol Delivery and Collection Service.

 

Corona Lockdown : The Slick Group opens up to Food Delivery and Collection, with five restaurant brands, including Balducci’s and Gibson’s Gourmet Burgers!

Not satisfied with opening only three restaurant brands from its new Dark Kitchen, the Slick Restaurant Group has created two new brands: Pizzaway (Hawaiian Pizza right), having successfully created the St Elmo’s pizza brand nationally many years ago, and then selling it; and Whattaburger, offering value-for-money 130gram burgers. More restaurant brands are being developed, the sky being the limit. I found it interesting that Halfon had come across the concept of Dark Kitchens in international restaurant articles, and decided to follow this trend in setting up such a Dark Kitchen for his Group in the former Relish restaurant building on New Church Street earlier this year, long before there was any inkling of the Corona Virus, and that the Lockdown would bring the restaurant industry to its knees.  The Lockdown stopped the construction work that was already underway when Lockdown commenced. In addition to the cost-saving benefit for the Take-Away or delivery side of their business, a trend he foresaw based on international trends pre-Corona, a further benefit is the location of the Dark Kitchen from a geosearch perspective, giving the company a 5 – 10 km radius to be found in searches by potential customers. A similar search from the Waterfront would only be half as effective, as half the area would be the surrounding ocean.

The Dark Kitchen concept is working well in London, Deliveroo Editions supporting the operating of five Dark kitchens from a car park, offering different International cuisines, each individually run by restaurants or chefs, and the food delivered by its delivery service Deliveroo, reports the Financial Times. The company has created five such multi Dark Kitchen sites in London, purely making food and getting it out of the kitchens for delivery. There is no sit-down Service, and no Wait Staff. In the UK Take-Away food delivery grew ten times faster than dining out in 2017. Other Dark Kitchen operators are DoorDash and UberEats.

The largest and one of the first Dark Kitchens to be created in South Africa is Darth Kitchens,supported by Silvertree Holdings, and established by UCOOK co-founder David Torr and OrderIn co-founder Heini Booysen. Such kitchens were planned to be established in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, and Soweto. About one million food orders were being processed via food ordering apps in our country last year, and that number will have grown vastly since Food Delivery was allowed in Lockdown Level 4 since May this year.

Dark Kitchens are set to grow at a fast rate, offering a value for money service and delivering to where the customer is, and not expecting the customers to come to the food preparation site. Most customers would have no clue in which kitchen their food is being prepared and delivered from! No alcohol can be offered as part of a Food Delivery package, as most Dark Kitchens have no liquor licence.

 

POSTSCRIPT 17/6: This comment was received from Rod Hunter about the Dark Kitchen scene in Cape Town:

‘First dark kitchen in South Africa was opened 30 years ago and is still operating to this day: Butlers Pizza. Great success story being delivery only since 1989.

Meanwhile almost all others have so far failed:

Darth Kitchens proved to be a R5 million failure with Heini Booysen leaving the business he founded and being replaced as CEO by Tom Shackle (previously Operations Manager at Bootlegger).

Smart Kitchen Co (also based in the City Bowl) raised R40 million for it’s dark kitchen expansion and was also a failure with none of it’s 12 brands lasting very long.

Kamini’s (of Master Chef) dark kitchen brand (FUDY) was another failure and the remaining 6 brands of The Ghost Kitchen (yet another dark kitchen in the City Bowl) are all struggling to survive.

Col’Cacchio and Real Foods (the Kauai group) also operating multiple brands from “dark kitchens” in the City Bowl.

How many dark kitchen brands can Uber Eats / Mr D support in the overly traded City Bowl area? Especially when most of the sales go to whichever restaurant group is running the best discount / promo on the day’.

 

POSTSCRIPT 18/6:  Randolf Jorberg sent this list of Dark Kitchens in Cape Town:

‘From what I can tell there’s the following groups operating these brands in the city bowl:

Darth Kitchens 12 Orphan Street https://www.linkedin.com/company/darth-kitchens/about/
Buddy’s Burgers
Anvil Burger Company (FB)
Bagels Shmagels
Fluent
Ringo’s Pizzeria
Fig & Swan
Jungle Salad Bar,
Anvil Burger Company
Big Little Burger

Corner Mill & Buitenkant Street – The second group
Burgerboss
SLAAI – Urban Salad Co
Pizza Co
Snack Snack
Pizza Union

71 Hope Street –
Eat Online (seems to carry all their items from the other brands)
Utopia Burgers
Hello Breakfast
Gyros
I love Salads
Sturgeon
Ahi Poke
Smyrna
Il Forno
Mejico
Maho Sushi

89 Church Street
Jazzy’s Pizza CBD
Simply Foods
Salushi Express
Jiro Poke CBD

No 6 Atterbury House, Waterkant Street, St Georges Mall
Love is Burger
Love Is Pizza
Pizza King
Da Gama Fish City
33 Waterkant Street
Exotic India
Pizza Box
The Great Gatsby
Wrap it Up
Dragon’s Chinese Food
New York Burgers Co’

 

 

Slick Restaurant Group Dark Kitchen, 70 New Church Street, Cape Town. Orders placed via Mr D, Bolt Food, and Uber Eats, 

 

About Chris von Ulmenstein

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com/blog Tel +27 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@Ulmenstein Facebook: Chris von Ulmenstein Instagram: @Chrissy_Ulmenstein