Guy Fieri is the latest chef bank in ghost kitchens to expand its brand in the midst of the pandemic. Fieri, perhaps best known as the host of nationwide bonanza Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, launched Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen in 23 states and Washington, DC, a restaurant serving only for delivery of existing restaurants or industrial kitchens, and serving the kind of flavored American cuisine that Fieri became famous for – oversized burgers, fried pickles , and snacks wrapped in meat. Of course there is enough donkey sauce.
The Flavortowns (Flavorstown?) Mostly work from the kitchens of restaurants, such as Buca di Beppo, Brio Italian Grille, Bravo Italian Kitchen and Bertucci’s. Some of these restaurants have opened their kitchens to ghost restaurants, also called virtual brands or delivery concepts. Bravo Italian Kitchen in Des Peres, Missouri, for example, is home to both Flavortown Kitchen and MrBeast Burger, the haunted kitchen project of the YouTube sensation of the same name. Fieri already owns a small chain, Chicken Guy, with Robert Earl, the owner of Bertucci’s, Bravo, Brio and Buca di Beppo. On top of that, Earl – who built his empire on themed restaurants like Planet Hollywood – is the founder of Virtual Dining Concepts, which oversees MrBeast Burger and Tyga Bites.
The expansion of ghost kitchens was well under way before the pandemic. Some of these brands, such as MrBeast or Tyga Bites, rely on a well-known name, while others, such as Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings (which is based on Chuck E. Cheese) and Buca di Beppo’s Wing Squad, allow established chains a wider range. can provide service. variety of food from their existing kitchens. (All of these except Chuck E. Cheese are part of Earl’s portfolio.) In addition, independent chefs have used the format to launch pop-ups from their own restaurants. Hundreds of concepts across the country could start more easily as “ghost kitchens” than when they had to work as brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Fieri spends a lot of time during the pandemic raising money and advocating for restaurant workers – and firefighters in Northern California. He raised $ 21.5 million for an emergency relief fund from the National Restaurant Association, from which restaurant workers were able to apply for $ 500 grants. Although places like Buca di Beppo are hardly independent restaurants, Fieri’s restaurant concept presumably keeps some members of the service industry in a time when restaurant work is significant.
However, all this comes in the opposite of the fundamental tensions surrounding the restaurant industry throughout the pandemic: the importance of keeping restaurants running and workers paid at a time when government aid is repeatedly denied, and the reality that restaurant workers’ experience a higher risk of contracting and dying due to COVID-19. This leaves many workers extremely unsafe, but forced to return to work because it is their only option. And the $ 500 grants that Fieri has helped are meager, especially since the National Restaurant Association has repeatedly called for minimum wage increases and paid sick leave for restaurant workers.
Many haunted kitchens operate in exclusive partnerships with programs such as Uber Eats and DoorDash, with fees that have proved detrimental to independent restaurants. (Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen uses Olo, but is available for delivery in most third-party delivery programs.) And while haunted kitchens have the potential to offer unsettled or money-strapped chefs a way to get their food out there with a lower overhead as a traditional restaurant, many are created by people like Earl, who already have money or start-up support that is rarely available for independent businesses. By partnering with Fieri through Flavortown Kitchen, virtual dining room concepts can reinforce multiple businesses simultaneously, i.e. keep a Buco di Beppo going, while also throwing Tyga Bites and Jalapeño Pig Poppers at Flavortown.