Ghost Kitchens

What is a Ghost Kitchen?

A ghost kitchen is a delivery-only commercial kitchen, often operating from a discreet building without signage. One building often houses several ghost kitchens operated by different QSR brands.
Our guide comparing dark kitchens to traditional shopfronts can explain further.

Dark Kitchen Design and Layout

A ghost kitchen is usually smaller and more compact than a traditional QSR kitchen, catering for a streamlined menu with a reduced staff for maximum cost efficiency. At Airedale, our expert designers are able to make the most of more restricted kitchen spaces. We make your dark kitchen layout as dynamic as possible for fast and effective work, allowing your workers to prepare delivery orders swiftly.
We’ll strategise the best placement for each piece of equipment for optimal workflow, ensuring everything is at its correct height and positioning, in accordance with the latest guidance for your workers’ safety and more.

Ghost Kitchen Equipment

In large ghost kitchen facilities with multiple kitchens and a high turnover of tenants, equipment must be versatile so that it can be reused by new tenants cost-effectively. At Airedale, our specialists can select equipment and equipment sizes that work best for versatile dark kitchen spaces that can be adapted for different operators.
If a dark kitchen requires customisation with specialist equipment, we can help with this, too. Working with our partner manufacturers, we can fit your dark kitchen with pizza ovens, egg cookers, and more to suit your needs.

Maintaining a Dark Kitchen

Dark kitchens, as a business model, are built around maximum efficiency, so it’s important to keep everything running smoothly and with precision.
At Airedale, we understand how equipment breakdown can cut into a dark kitchen’s profits and damage customer goodwill. Luckily, our full turnkey cradle-to-grave service means we provide maintenance and repair work to keep your dark kitchen in full working order.
When you create a preventative maintenance plan with us, you reduce the risk of equipment breakdowns, saving time and money on costly repairs and giving your dark kitchen equipment greater longevity.
Should a breakdown occur, you can request an engineer, and one of our highly trained, nationwide commercial kitchen specialists will be with you to remedy the issue.

Ghost Kitchen FAQs

How Much do Ghost Kitchens Cost to Rent?

Ghost kitchen rental costs vary from site to site, depending on location, kitchen size, and more. Some ghost kitchen facilities also charge a higher rent for tenants who are closer to the delivery drivers’ pass (the area at which drivers collect food orders). There are sometimes additional costs from utilities as well.
However, it is usually the case that a 12-month ghost kitchen tenancy is significantly cheaper than running a traditional QSR with a front-of-house area.

Do Ghost Kitchens Need a Licence?

A ghost kitchen requires all of the same licences and permits as any other food service business, including a premises licence, food handler permit, health permit, food business registration and, of course, a business licence. Our guide to setting up a dark kitchen can advise you on further requirements.

Is a Ghost Kitchen Profitable?

A ghost kitchen can be highly profitable, allowing you to cut back on the costs of hiring front-of-house staff, as well as lighting and branding for front-of-house. It can also be an excellent way to test your brand’s profitability in a given area before investing in a full shopfront. Our guide comparing ghost kitchens and traditional shopfronts can elaborate further.

Ghost Kitchen Case Studies

At Airedale, we are proud to have worked on several major ghost kitchen projects, including a partnership with Deliveroo.
This project involved developing a multi-kitchen site where multiple delivery restaurants, contracted to Deliveroo, could be housed. This provided a single port of call for Deliveroo drivers to collect takeaways from several brands. It required us to cater to a number of unique kitchen types and menus, including kitchens handling different cultural cuisines, specialist products, and more. The facility also needed to be adaptable to tenant turnover while minimising waste.
To accomplish this, we developed facilities capable of holding numerous ghost kitchens with dynamic layouts and versatile equipment, including standard bench sizes that could be easily switched out for alternate or additional equipment. This allowed us to ensure that each kitchen was specific to the individual partner while also ensuring that making alterations for a new partner would be simple and incur minimal waste.

Learn more about Airedale’s projects

Ghost Kitchen Insights

We provide expert insight on running and maintaining ghost kitchens and a variety of other commercial kitchen types on our blog. With specialist guidance on commercial kitchen equipment, health and safety, repair work and more.

Are you a commercial kitchen operator requiring ghost kitchen installation, redesign or maintenance? At Airedale, we specialise in full turnkey ghost kitchen servicing for multi-site operators and nationwide brands. Contact us to discover how we can service your dark kitchen design and build project.