[tptacek]

Why do you care? I absolutely get not wanting to order from a "restaurant" that is nothing more than a brand name applied to a totally generic delivery concept run off interchangeable people and food-service supplies; that is a real problem with DoorDash listings. But (to take a nonexistent example) if Small Cheval in Chicago wants to sell burgers out of a "ghost kitchen", I don't know why I'd want to prefer the "real" location; you're still getting the same product.

[oh_sigh]

The problem is when the ghost kitchen is hiding the fact that you're ordering from a restaurant you don't actually want to order from. You might be 100% certain you want pizza, and you don't want Dominos. But, you see "Master's pizza" and you give it a shot, without realizing it is just a ghost kitchen operated by Dominos.

[tptacek]

Yes, I'm saying, that "Master's Pizza" problem is straightforwardly avoided: order from restaurants you know exist. That's good for the restaurants, too! Wherever you are, there's a local restaurant scene, and operators are hoping you'll plug into it and have a sense of what's around; that's how they get business.

The other commenter is saying that there are "-To-Go" versions of some restaurants in your local scene, and those "-To-Go's" are served out of ghost kitchens instead of the restaurant itself. I know that does happen, but it hasn't been my experience that there's a major quality difference between the two; unsurprisingly, since good restaurants are reluctant to sabotage their own reputations just to expand their incredibly low-margin delivery options.

I don't doubt there are restaurants that do use ghost kitchens badly; I'd say: probably stop patronizing them altogether.

[FireBeyond]

How do you know? I've found at least three restaurants, non-chain, in my neighborhood that have ghost websites and phone numbers set up. I don't know whether the restaurants know/agree/have licensed, but I suspect not, and suspect it's a larger/legally cautious place, because I have called to order and heard very precise/specific phrasing:

"Hello, I can take your to-go order for Restaurant!"

"Is this Restaurant?"

"I can take your order for Restaurant whenever you're ready!"

as in carefully coached to never actually say, just imply, that they are Restaurant.

[oh_sigh]

Sure, you can avoid it, but it's nice to be able to discover new restaurants you may enjoy without fear of being duped by a ghost kitchen in a restaurant you know you don't enjoy. There are over 1200 restaurants that doordash will deliver to me in NYC(UWS), it would be nice to be able to sample from them, without doing some google snooping for every restaurant you consider.

[JohnFen]

> operators are hoping you'll plug into it and have a sense of what's around; that's how they get business.

Exactly, and the way you do that is to physically go to the restaurants.

[itronitron]

It seems likely that restaurants don't know when their orders are being hijacked and serviced by surrogate ghost kitchens.

[tptacek]

That's not the case.

[jjulius]

> Why do you care? ... you're still getting the same product.

My experience has been that food from ghost kitchens has been incredibly subpar when compared to the same food ordered from that same restaurant's brick-and-mortar location.