Franchise Glossary
Ghost Kitchen
What is Ghost Kitchen in franchising?
A delivery-only food operation with no dining room, no storefront, and no walk-up service. It is a commercial kitchen optimized for preparing meals sold through delivery apps. Several established franchise brands now offer ghost kitchen models with dramatically lower build-out costs, sometimes one-tenth of a traditional restaurant location. The tradeoff is that you lose walk-in customers entirely and become dependent on third-party delivery platforms and their commission fees. Ghost kitchens represent one of the fastest-growing entry points into food-service franchising.