Where do orders from Charlotte ghost kitchens come from? Not where you think
Say you’ve lost yourself in food TikToks for a while, then find yourself craving a MrBeast Burger. You google MrBeast Burger locations in Charlotte and find that the closest to you is in Pineville. You order for delivery, then chomp your way through a Karl’s Deluxe or a Chris Style.
You may have just eaten food prepared in a ghost kitchen and didn’t even know it.
The Charlotte Observer has identified 37 eateries in the city run by popular chain restaurants operating so-called “ghost kitchens,” sometimes known as virtual kitchens.
Most of the establishments do not have independent health inspection records, but county officials say it’s not a violation of environmental health codes.
Do ghost kitchens get their own health score?
If you’re someone who checks the health inspection score for a restaurant you’re interested in trying, you won’t find records for most of the ghost kitchens in Charlotte. Although that may seem like an enormous oversight, county officials say it’s actually perfectly legal.
Bailey Pennington, a communications specialist for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says the health score of a host kitchen rolls over to the ghost kitchen operating within the establishment. There is one health score given per permit, not per brand.
“...No additional score would be required of the ghost kitchen as it is the same permittee and operation (as the host kitchen), just a different marketing concept,” Pennington told the Observer. “The score carries for the permit, not the marketing concept.”
Charlotte’s 37 ghost kitchens: They are actually run by popular chain restaurants
What is a ghost kitchen?
If you’ve used Grubhub, UberEats, or DoorDash to order food to your home, there’s a chance you may have ordered a meal that was made in a ghost kitchen being run by a chain restaurant.
A ghost kitchen is a food service location that prepares food for delivery, without providing dine-in service. For instance, Chili’s is available as an option on food delivery apps, but customers have another opportunity to order food from the establishment, whether they know it or not, by choosing a restaurant called It’s Just Wings.
Both brands share the same parent company, kitchen, equipment, and ingredients to prepare your meal.
The concept of ghost kitchens is a relatively new idea that food businesses have adopted into their model to boost revenue. Many restaurants across the nation were dealt a heavy blow during the beginning stages of the pandemic, so large corporations were forced to get creative.
Corporations found that if they created multiple brands that operate out of the same kitchen, their chances of customers ordering food from their restaurants increases. Thus, the concept of ghost kitchens was born.
That means if you’re in the mood for a meal from the tastefully-branded restaurant known as Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings, you’re actually ordering your dinner from the Chuck E. Cheese’s located off Pineville-Matthews Road.
This differs from another definition of ghost kitchen: commercial kitchens with rented space, where the owners of food businesses offering catering, pickup, and delivery meals, or who operate a food truck can go to prep, cook and store food.
Is running both kitchens a health violation?
Rebecca Carter of the Mecklenburg County Health Department explained that restaurants are in the clear so long as the ghost kitchen is included on the host restaurant’s permit.
“Expanding a business with menu, new concept additions, or a ghost kitchen concept within an establishment without health department approval, can exceed equipment capacity, storage and the preparation space originally approved at the time of permit issuance,” Carter told the Observer in a written statement. “A ghost kitchen is the same operator as the facility, thus there is no separate health department permit for the business to generate a separate score.”
According to Bailey Pennington, including the ghost kitchen on the host kitchen’s permit allows for tracing during an outbreak of foodborne illnesses.
Is it ethical for chain restaurants to run ghost kitchens?
Despite the legal clearance of ghost kitchens, many customers still feel deceived by chain restaurants and delivery apps, despite the relative transparency of their operations.
Restaurants can offer disclosure which some larger businesses, such as Chili’s, subtly incorporate into the branding of their ghost kitchen.
If you look on DoorDash, for example, at Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings in Charlotte, you’ll see the app advertises the restaurant as “A Concept By CEC Entertainment, Inc.” That’s Chuck E. Cheese’s, which you’d find out with a couple more clicks in the app where the fine print reads CEC Entertainment is the “owner and operator.”
A TikTok video that went viral last year featured a DoorDash driver warning users about ghost kitchens.
Some viewers, in response to the video, expressed concern over restaurants’ practices.
One commenter described feeling “infuriated” by the concept, writing, “I want to give my money to a small locally owned restaurant not a corporation playing dress up. There’s a reason I pick them.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 12:30 PM.
