Digital-kitchen concept Darth Kitchens, a new start-up in the Central City, is using technology to revolutionise the take-out food delivery industry. Here’s how…
It is a restaurant that produces a diverse array of food, but without a front-of-house, so to speak. This explains why, besides being called a “ghost kitchen”, Darth Kitchens is also referred to as a “digital kitchen”, “dark kitchen”, “virtual kitchen” or “cloud kitchen”.
It does exist, though. The actual 400 square-metre kitchen is located on 12 Orphan Street, Cape Town. But the concept removes the risks normally associated with restaurants, including high rental, CapEx, decor and front-of-house staff.
Explains Chief Executive Officer, Heini Booysen: “All that stuff goes away and then you access the customer purely through delivery apps and platforms like Uber Eats, Mr D and OrderIn. So from one single kitchen, you can provide multiple brands and cuisine types, thus providing quality dishes and a memorable take-out experience at an affordable price.”
Brands owned and operated by Darth Kitchens include Buddy’s Burgers, Fluent, Bagels Shmagels, Anvil Burger Co, Ringo’s NY Style Pizzeria and Jungle Salad Bar.
Says Heini: “Cape Town has an incredibly diverse culture thus resulting in a very diverse palate. It’s a great place to open a kitchen of this kind and experiment with different foods and brands.”
Darth Kitchen's CEO - Heini Booysen
FILLING A GAP IN THE MARKET
According to a report by Cape Business News report, this trend has already gained momentum globally with global delivery apps like Deliveroo launching these kitchens in the UK as far back as 2017.
In an article by IT Web, Bronwyn Williams, Flux Trends future finance specialist, says: “Digital kitchens have their roots in increasingly popular takeaway food delivery apps, which bring a new opportunity in the market for restaurants to cut out the middleman and provide food produced for at-home delivery.
“Technology has ensured more variety by enabling the smaller players to also deliver food to the home, whereas in the past, only big restaurants that could afford the delivery service offered it. That’s where the gap has been filled by dark kitchens, which take advantage of the delivery apps ecosystem and offer customers convenience, lower costs and good quality foods. Dark kitchen overheads are much lower and those cost-saving factors are passed on to the consumer.”
DARK KITCHEN PIONEERS
While the Darth Kitchens concept is not new in other parts of the world, Heini and his partners, Jayson Elis (Chief Operating Officer), Tom Shackle (Chief Technology Officer), Jaryn Goelst (Chief Marketing Officer), Buddy Kebble (Head Chef) and JP Phippen (Culinary Director) are among the first to pioneer it in South Africa.
Fortunately for the Darth Kitchens team, Capetonians are catching on quickly. And Heini believes “the Cape Town market is definitely on the rise”.
“We are seeing more and more people looking for quality take-out food. People are quickly understanding that dark kitchens are able to offer better prices for quality products, functional and ‘greener’ packaging and much better turnaround times from ordering to delivery,” he says.
POISED FOR GROWTH
The overall goal for Darth Kitchens is to be South Africa’s largest dark kitchen network. And plans to achieve this are already in motion.
Business Insider reports that Darth Kitchens has secured seed capital in excess of R5 million to date from investor Silvertree, with a further R30 million planned to rapidly scale the model over the next few years.
Going forward Heini says this year they are looking at polishing operations and expanding into new and exciting areas of Cape Town and surrounding areas. “We aim to consistently provide Cape Town and South Africa with quality brands in the food delivery sector,” he says.
IMAGES: Darth Kitchens