[khy]

A Wonder just opened near my house, and the "different restaurants" seem to really be just different sections of a large menu with distinct branding. I.e., there is a single physical kitchen that makes food from the different "restaurants".

[pfdietz]

There are a bunch of "restaurants" in our town that are just different menus serviced at the same ghost/cloud/dark kitchen. The quality is generally not good. I wonder about the quality at Wonder -- the broader the menu, the harder it is for the preparers to get good at it.

[bunderbunder]

I'm thinking here of an Indian place near my office that graduated from ghost kitchen to food hall restaurant. I had their food both before and after, and the difference was night and day. I actually didn't want to try the food hall version, based on my experience with their ghost kitchen incarnation. But a friend convinced me to give them another chance, and now they're one of my favorite places for when I want to splurge on lunch.

I don't really know what the difference is, but I'm guessing it's that they didn't get to have a kitchen setup that was well adapted to their menu at the ghost kitchen.

[mapt]

You can change the name, the brand, of a ghost kitchen startup 'restaurant' overnight if you think it's stale due to bad consumer experiences. So you need to care less about those.

[gkoberger]

Yeah, it's a cloud kitchen with a eating area.

I don't think anyone thinks this is "innovation"... it's just a slightly different take on Uber Eats / Spoonrocket / food courts / cloud kitchens / etc.

And if there is an "innovation", it's the vertical integration... it's a business "innovation," not a tech one.