Shopping Mall Food Courts Getting Delivery Boost With Ghost Kitchens

Shopping mall food courts are getting a boost from the ghost kitchen movement spawned by the pandemic, with delivery an important revenue driver as life returns to a new normal, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday (July 6).

Sam Nazarian moved from being a hotel lifestyle entrepreneur to a ghost kitchen pioneer and launched Creating Culinary Communities (C3) earlier this year to merge the concepts of food halls and ghost kitchens. The company already has investors like Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management, both big players in shopping malls.

Nazarian told the Journal his firm is looking to launch 1,000 ghost kitchens before the close of 2021. C3 also is getting ready to announce an $80 million Series B funding round co-led by Brookfield and REEF Technology, WSJ reported.

The co-mingling of food courts and ghost kitchens sprung during the pandemic as eateries shuttered or moved to delivery-only or pickup. C3 is eyeing mall space, hotels, and restaurants as a way to offer dine-in and delivery-only food kitchens in a single location as a way to increase both efficiency and profitability. 

“[We are] making sure these restaurants [and] food halls are operating almost at a 24-hour perspective,” Nazarian told the WSJ. “You may walk into a Krispy Rice in Chicago or New York or Austin … but in the back, we have seven to 10 of our other brands being cooked there for delivery.”

C3’s first food hall will open in a 40,000-square-foot space in New York City at Manhattan West and is expected to house some of the company’s 40-plus brands, including Umami Burger and Krispy Rice. The open date is targeted in September, per WSJ.

Direct-to-consumer and eCommerce brands are looking to shopping malls for physical retail space and the world reopens and digital brands seek an expanded presence in shoppers’ lives. Ethan Chernofsky, VP of marketing at foot traffic analytics firm Placer.ai, told PYMNTS in May that the integration will bring new life to vacancies and empty anchor stores.

The ghost kitchen idea gained traction during the pandemic as people hunkered down and reached for their phones to place digital orders for meals, groceries, household staples, and more. In November of last year, Chipotle and Red Lobster both unveiled new store concepts that relied on app-based orders and ghost kitchen concepts.