“Ghost Kitchen” could be the title of a Stephen King cookbook. It is, however, a phenomenon that was muted by the pandemic but appears to be showing signs of life.
A so-called “ghost kitchen,” which incidentally is not a term of endearment when an industry insider uses it, is a restaurant kitchen without a restaurant attached. Before COVID-19, food writers and industry analysts predicted the future of dining out would be relegated to only such facilities linked to third-party delivery services. Food would be ordered online from a well-known restaurant’s website, then delivered by an online service such as Grubhub Inc. or DoorDash Inc. An illusion would be created that the meal had come from a favorite restaurant, carried from the steamy kitchen past tables of happy diners and a lively bar. In reality, the delivery driver would have picked up the takeout package at the window of a drafty cinderblock building in a suburban industrial park. Then the pandemic hit and the concept was shelved.
Recently, some savvy operators saw an opportunity to appeal to their chefs’ creativity and excess capacity. In Rhode Island, there are three such operations. La Vecina, a Mexican street-food concept by chef Mariana Gonzalez-Trasvina, which operated as a two-week pop-up at Bar ’Cino in Newport in January, will be continuing as a ghost kitchen for the foreseeable future. The menu features a variety of tacos, snacks and desserts, all inspired by Mariana’s family’s recipes.
“The La Vecina pop-up was a really fun experiment for our staff and our guests, and we were thrilled with the response,” said Shawn Westhoven, corporate beverage director for Newport Restaurant Group and general manager at Bar ’Cino. “We’re excited to be able to offer chef Mariana’s hand-crafted Mexican street food as a ghost kitchen concept, something that is gaining traction locally, allowing our team to flex their culinary creativity muscles during these unique times.”
Chef Gonzalez-Trasvina, originally from Mexico City, crafted an authentic menu that honors her family’s generational recipes.
Tacos are served in handmade blue corn tortillas. The menu also offers various tamales and desserts. The menu is offered for takeout and delivery only from the restaurant.
Celebrity chef Guy Fieri has jumped into the game, opening a Flavortown Kitchen operation out of the Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant in Warwick. He is not there and fans cannot dine there even if he were. Fieri’s Flavortown menu includes cheesesteak eggrolls, buffalo wings, burgers, Cuban sandwiches, Cajun chicken alfredo, macaroni and cheese, and fried pickles.
Green Dragon Chinese is a ghost kitchen operating on the second floor of Midtown Oyster Bar in Newport. Proprietor Charlie Holder, whose family owns and operates several restaurants in Newport, quietly launched Green Dragon late last fall. It was a way to stretch his chefs’ culinary chops and to expand a shrunken universe, as under state mandates he was only allowed to seat a fraction of his dining room’s capacity, and he was selling all the takeout seafood he could.
Business was OK, enough to sustain the operation. Its skeleton staff was making enough of a living. Holder, like most restaurateurs in the state, did not waste valuable time handwringing over the situation. He pivoted, developing a mass-appeal Asian menu with popular items his staff could execute such as crab rangoon, fried rice, lo mein, and what someone with a sense of humor called General Thames chicken, named after the street on which Green Dragon is located. The Green Dragon has become a hit. Many online reviewers don’t seem to notice that the Green Dragon is a virtual restaurant. They report in their reviews that they are directed to the address of the Midtown Oyster Bar to pick up Chinese food and accept it without question.
There does not appear to be any sign the trend will let up after we emerge from the pandemic.
Bruce Newbury’s radio show and podcast, “Dining Out with Bruce Newbury,” is broadcast on WADK 1540 AM and several radio stations throughout New England. Email him at Bruce@BruceNewbury.com.
