How Delivery-Only “Ghost” Restaurants Are Changing Takeout

Good Uncle sets up agreements with established restaurants in other cities to replicate their menu items, like Joes Pizza. Maple, for instance , and Sprig, have their own in-house delivery teams. But another startup is taking meal deliveries from commissaries one step further and turning logistics into the center of the business model. The company sets up agreements with established restaurants with limited or no delivery service in Syracuse to license their recipes and then recreate them in the Good Uncle commissary.

Key Takeaways:

• Hungry New Yorkers ordering meals through such online services as Seamless or Eat24 order everything from sushi to burgers to tacos. But when they order from certain restaurants like Leafage and Butcher Block, they might not realize that those restaurants aren’t restaurants at all.
• Green Summit is just one example of a growing wave of ghost restaurants that skip the storefront and bring food straight to the customer. These places range from the David Chang-backed delivery startup Maple to ready-to-eat meal services like Munchery to new business models like the integrated kitchen/delivery firm Good Uncle.
• Schatzberg and his partner Todd Millman started Green Summit in 2013 with approximately $1 million of investment. Their first online-only concept, Authentic (which still operates, see sidebar), launched in August of that year. According to Schatzberg, the restaurant made $20,000 in its first week of sales.

“In New York alone, Green Summit’s brands offer all sorts of cuisine “concepts,” including meatballs, salad/sandwich/juice, and burgers/grilled cheese.”

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