Food from the Cloud Kitchen: Is it good enough?

How do Cloud Kitchens work?

There’s a lot that goes into Cloud Kitchens, but the overall concept is fairly simple. It’s not financially reasonable for a restaurateur to rent or lease a whole storefront when they only need to prepare food for delivery, so Cloud Kitchens offers commercial kitchen spaces within their facilities for much less. Restaurant brands rent these out so they can optimize their delivery process, with minimal risk.

These brands receive orders on a tablet at their cooking station, then cook them efficiently right in the facility. They then hand them off to Cloud Kitchens’ delivery drivers for speedy transport to you, the customer. If you live in a metropolitan area, it’s fairly likely you’ve already been delivered food prepared in a Cloud Kitchens location and not even known it.

What food I can order from a Cloud Kitchen Location?

Restaurants operating out of Cloud Kitchens are often just expansions of existing physical restaurants you know and love. For this reason, a lot of the food coming out of them may be fairly familiar already.

Because of this, you can order just about anything from a Cloud Kitchen location. Of course, it depends on what restaurants are renting out space in Cloud Kitchens’ locations near you, but the variety of food is pretty much the same as any grouping of standard restaurants. The meals just might not be as extravagant, as we’ll discuss later.

How can I be sure that a Cloud Kitchen location makes high-quality food?

Cloud Kitchens prides itself on maintaining a clean, state of the art kitchen spaces. So at the very least, you can be sure your food is coming from a high-quality kitchen. And if you’re ordering from a Cloud Kitchen extension of a restaurant you already know, you can probably feel confident that the food quality will be the same.

If not, you can never go wrong checking out good old Yelp reviews, or reviews on whichever app you typically use to order your food. A restaurant’s website will always tell you the food is delicious, but other consumers will give you the cold, hard truth. Just keep in mind that dissatisfied customers are always more likely to leave reviews than satisfied ones, so take those with a grain of salt.

What’s the difference between food at a sit-down restaurant and food at a Cloud Kitchens location?

If the location is doing it right, there shouldn’t be much difference at all — at least not in quality. The main way in which Cloud Kitchen menus contrast those of standard restaurants is that they are optimized for delivery. Because of this, items may be simpler, as these locations don’t have the time to prepare complex, extravagant meals.

So, the food should be every bit as good, albeit made a little faster. Don’t expect it to show up plated as if you were sitting down at a table with ambient jazz playing, but do expect it to taste just as delicious.

If you think you might want to start preparing delivery-only food but don’t have the time or money to invest in Cloud Kitchens, we’ve got you covered. With the help of our team at Forward Kitchens, you can use your existing operation, however big or small, to launch a virtual restaurant with multiple brands. This means you’ll have even more chances to reach consumers, with even less investment.

We’ll handle branding, website and menu design, and everything else needed to get you going. All you have to do is what you’re best at: make great food (just for more people). If this sounds more like what you need, email us at restaurants@forwardkitchens.com