今天的 buzzword 又是一个疫情下带火的产物。

Ghost Kitchen是不是听着怪瘆人的，闹鬼的厨房？地狱厨房？

虽然可以直接翻译为「幽灵厨房」，可它跟幽灵也没有半毛钱的关系。

今天的Buzz Word，我们就来聊聊这个，你可能也吃过从里头送出的食物的Ghost Kitchen。

01

What is a Ghost Kitchen?

A ghost kitchen is also known as a delivery-only restaurant, virtual kitchen, shadow kitchen, commissary kitchen, cloud kitchen, or dark kitchen.

Ghost Kitchen 直译就是【幽灵厨房】.

也可以称其为外卖餐厅、虚拟厨房、影子厨房、小卖部厨房、云厨房等等。

Ghost Kitchen

A ghost kitchen is a professional food preparation and cooking facility set up for the preparation of delivery-only meals.

It is a very common idea in a restaurant business.

So common in China that we don't really think about it much, nonetheless it is a fast-growing trend in the world.

所谓的【幽灵厨房】其实就是专门为餐厅或者虚拟餐厅烹制准备外卖专属餐食的厨房，说白了就是不可堂食，只做外卖的地方。

A ghost kitchen prepares meals for a restaurant or virtual restaurant to then be picked up for delivery, takeout, or given at a drive-through.

「幽灵厨房」一词最早出现在2015年NBC纽约的一篇文章中。

The original article was actually critical of Ghost Kitchens in New York City where restaurant owners were found in an investigation to be listing their restaurant under multiple different brands on delivery apps.

但最早提到的Ghost Kitchen其实是有贬义的，因为有些餐馆老板会在不同的地方准备餐食，然后挂在各大外卖平台上，不同的品牌名下进行出售。

而那些加工食物的地方，有很多是没有餐饮许可证，不能进行零售食品加工的，因为此，Ghost Kitchen的主意才会被人诟病。

Back then the problem with this is that several of these locations were non-retail food processing establishments, which did not have restaurant permits to sell food directly to customers.

虽然最早出现的时候有这样那样的问题，但是【幽灵厨房】这样一个商业模式在接下来的几年间却是飞快地发展成型。

这主要是因为消费者对外卖需求在增多，以及越来越多第三方外卖送货平台的参与。

Ghost kitchens have emerged as a business model in response to the rapid growth in consumer demand for restaurant delivery meals.

Consumer demand for restaurant delivery meals, as well as the rising use of 3rd party delivery apps.

也因为通过幽灵厨房，就不用考虑餐厅的选址，不用去付高额的房租，所以极大地缩减了餐饮业的成本。

And it's also because with Ghost Kitchens, you don't have to rent a space in the urban centers where there's a lot of food traffic.

Therefore restaurants can significantly reduce their costs.

At the same time, with Ghost Kitchens, there is no need for front-of-house staff, renovations, and paper menus. Everything is online.

而且在人工方面，也不再需要诸如收银员、服务员之类的外场人员，大大减少了成本的投入。

This leads to lower labor costs, whereas a typical restaurant delivers 15 to 20 orders per hour, a Ghost Kitchen can deliver 60 orders per hour with a single employee.

And with the price of the food remaining the same, this means much higher profit.

这样算来在保持餐食价格不变的前提下，会大大增加盈利空间。

If before the pandemic, Ghost Kitchens were mainly being used by virtual restaurants, then the pandemic really forced restaurant owners to cut down on operations or shut down.

So more chain restaurants have started adopting the concept.

如果说在很多国家，疫情之前Ghost Kitchen 的这个点子还主要是用于虚拟餐厅，也就是那种纯线上的餐厅；

那么在疫情期间，很多有实体店的餐厅为了减少开支求生存，也都逐步转向了幽灵厨房的模式。

The spike in the growth of Ghost Kitchen is predicted to potentially create a one trillion-dollar industry by 2030.

预估到2030年，幽灵厨房将会成为超过1万亿美金的产业。

02

Three types of Ghost Kitchen

听到这，有些人可能觉得困惑了。

在中国，几乎所有的餐厅都会与外卖App合作，比“饿了么”或者“美团”。

我们也经常点外卖，由骑手帮着去餐厅取餐然后送到我们面前，那这些和【幽灵厨房】有什么不同呢？

其实，Ghost Kitchen主要分为以下三类：

First Type

Incubator or Pop-up Ghost Kitchen

第一类的【幽灵厨房】被叫做孵化器或者快闪厨房.

This is usually connected with a traditional restaurant but focuses primarily on online orders and deliveries.

它们通常是附属于一个传统的餐厅，只不过它的这一部分是专门负责外卖菜品的准备，和堂食的菜品分开来保证最高的效率。

Second Type

Kitchen Pod

中文里好像没有一个很固定的翻译，可以把它理解为"集装箱厨房"。

This is usually for an operator looking to launch a Ghost Kitchen as fast as possible, and on a very low budget.

Kitchen Pods as small shipping containers.

你听得没错，其实就是一个小的货运集装箱。

With kitchen equipment inside, so they can be transported to different places, and they can also work as an independent kitchen.

Third Type

Commissary or Shared Kitchen

共享厨房 is the most well-known and successful Ghost Kitchen model.

This is usually a space owned and operated by a third party company that has multiple kitchen spaces.

共享厨房就有点像现在很火的这种共享办公空间，同样是第三方运营，然后分成不同的厨房空间，这样可以让不同的品牌和餐厅入驻。

这种共享的厨房空间甚至可以按小时来收费.

It's like shared office, and you can go in and rent your own kitchen to prepare your own food.

And usually you will pay a membership or rent out cooking space by the hour.

This is another way to really significantly reduce the cost of opening a restaurant.

想要开餐厅又没有完美预算的小伙伴们也许可以参考下【幽灵厨房】的模式，毕竟，省下的就是赚到的。

新词拓展

Example 1：

-Small food operators use ghost kitchens to minimize their operational cost.

Example 2：

-The pandemic significantly accelerated the growth of ghost kitchens.

Key Words

本期关键词

Ghost Kitchen

“幽灵”厨房

Cloud kitchen

云厨房

Delivery-only meals

外卖专属餐食

Retail food processing

零售食品加工

Restaurant permits

餐饮许可证

Third-party delivery applications

第三方送餐app

Front-of-house staff

外场人员

Brick-and-mortar restaurants

实体餐厅

Incubator/pop-up ghost kitchen

孵化器/快闪厨房

Kitchen pod

集装箱厨房

Commissary/Shared kitchen

共享厨房