Firehose #195: 🍲  The kitchen is open. 🍲

But CloudKitchens is struggling to overcome early challenges, limiting how much it can take advantage of the crisis, at least in the U.S. Certain properties it has bought have turned out to be in worse shape than anticipated, making some of them unusable and sharply raising the costs of renovating others, say people with knowledge of the problems.

As Americans dine-out less and order-in more, “virtual kitchens” are emerging in dense metropolitan areas to house dozens of delivery-only concepts in converted warehouses. The biggest player in the US is CloudKitchens, backed with $150m from Uber founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick. Watch as we provide an inside look into these mysterious kitchens ... See more

One path is exemplified by CloudKitchens. At its core, CloudKitchens is simple: Build commercial kitchen spaces in less-trafficked areas and rent them out to operators to run delivery-only food businesses.

Despite these enormous acquisitions and partnerships, delivery app giants struggle to reach profitability, even while charging feeble restaurants exorbitant fees. From this viewpoint, the food delivery ecosystem is broken. It’s one of the reasons why smaller, more localized delivery services have emerged with a new focus: to help restaurants market... See more