[trynewideas]

I was furious with ghost kitchens as soon as I saw REEF carts pop up in Portland even before the pandemic. These things were wrecking local food carts from the start, taking good walk-up locations to serve delivery drivers but not walk-up customers, hiring away cooks from restaurants during a labor shortage with typical startup overinflated wages that they cut as soon as the business hit any bumps, and data-harvesting information about people and neighborhoods from transaction data.

There is no good long-term result from ghost kitchens. The pandemic handed them a crowbar and they've wedged themselves into the landscape, and co-op/commissary kitchens are starting to push back, but now it's an infestation. There are fucking Wendy's ghost carts in my neighborhood now.