In major cities across the country, a different kind of restaurant is taking shape. There’s no dining room, chalkboard menu, and no front door for customers to walk through. Instead, meals are ordered online, prepared behind closed doors, and handed off to delivery drivers at the curb. It’s all happening inside a growing network of ghost kitchens, and CloudKitchens is helping lead the way.
Founded to support a delivery-first model, CloudKitchens has expanded to over 5,000 kitchens in more than 400 locations across 110+ cities. Its kitchens aren’t traditional in any sense, as they’re built for scale, speed, and digital reach.
For independent chefs, established brands, and food entrepreneurs alike, it offers an alternative path—one without the overhead of a storefront or the pressure of high foot traffic. This removes some of the biggest barriers to opening or scaling a restaurant, offering not just an entry point into the food industry, but giving people the chance to chase their dreams.
Built for Delivery Instead of Dining
Each CloudKitchens unit functions as a self-contained kitchen focused on delivery and takeout. The spaces are compact—typically around 200 square feet—but come with everything needed to operate: commercial hoods, sinks, Wi-Fi, and gas and power connections. Operators are responsible for bringing in their own equipment and staff, and CloudKitchens handles the rest.
That includes building maintenance, regular inspections, cleaning, and courier handoff systems. At many locations, there are onsite staff to coordinate pickups and monitor deliveries. Facilities also come equipped with contactless pickup windows, cold and dry storage, and food runner services to streamline the entire delivery chain.
Restaurants don’t need front-of-house teams or dining space, which means lower labor costs and fewer moving parts. Kitchens are located in delivery-dense neighborhoods, which helps shorten delivery times and reach more customers.
Launching in Less Time With Lower Costs
Opening a traditional restaurant often means a long list of expenses and a timeline that can stretch beyond a year. Construction, permitting, furniture, signage, and lease agreements can push startup costs well past $1 million. By contrast, CloudKitchens says most of its operators are able to get started in as little as eight weeks, with entry costs beginning at approximately $30,000.
This shift in scale makes the model accessible to many different types of businesses. Independent chefs, food truck owners, multi-location franchises, and even legacy restaurants have used Cloud Kitchens to launch new concepts or expand into new markets. It’s not a shortcut, but a more flexible route that allows entrepreneurs to focus on cooking and delivery without taking on unnecessary costs.
A Single Platform That Ties Everything Together
Beyond kitchen space, CloudKitchens also provides the digital tools to manage it. At the center is a single tablet that connects all major delivery platforms, including DoorDash, Grubhub, and ChowNow. Orders from each app are routed into one interface, allowing operators to manage menus, update prep times, delay orders, or mark items as sold out without switching devices.
The platform also offers detailed insights into daily sales, top-performing items, delivery times, and revenue. Operators can track their progress in real time, make menu decisions based on customer behavior, and export reports for internal planning. The system includes manual and auto-accept order settings and easy access to order history for customer service or accounting.
Some partners even run multiple brands from the same kitchen. The technology supports that setup, offering a way to manage everything from one place. For businesses that want to grow, test new ideas, or track customer demand more closely, the data can be just as valuable as the space itself.
What Operators Are Saying
Cloud Kitchens reviews show how its model appeals to operators at every stage of their careers. Many report similar benefits, like faster setups, consistent customer orders, and more time spent focusing on the food itself instead of operations. CloudKitchens’ operations are guided by four key values—innovation, collaboration, quality, and efficiency—each one reflected in how the company supports its partners.
Matt, founder of Fuku Sushi, saw growth almost immediately when he signed on with the company. “My business has exploded!” he says. “We started with one kitchen in May, ramped up super fast, and we’ve already opened in two more cities. Now my mind is on growth and how to get this into more and more units.”
Julio A., owner of Coffee Q, describes how CloudKitchens helped his business stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. “My family’s from Guatemala, and I grew up around coffee beans, so that's always been a big passion of mine,” he says. “CloudKitchens has allowed me to reach a different market. With COVID and the summer, the one thing that this is allowing me to do is be consistent. You can see the growth because I see the same people ordering from me almost every day, and I see new people also ordering from those platforms.”
Other operators echo that same sense of flexibility. Shannen T., who runs Craft Burger, says that the financial risks of a traditional buildout kept him from opening a dine-in restaurant. “Being the breadwinner for my family, I didn't want to get into something that was going to be… if it didn’t work, we’re in a whole lot of trouble,” he says. With CloudKitchens, he’s been able to expand on a concept he already knew, while keeping costs under control.
Different Roads, Same Platform
For some restaurant owners, CloudKitchens is a way to continue something meaningful. In Columbus, Ohio, Nick Penzone revived his family’s restaurant—Florentine—which first opened in 1945 and had long been known for its classic Italian dishes and house-made sauces. After closing their brick-and-mortar location in 2016 due to rising overhead costs, Nick and his wife weren’t sure how to bring it back.
CloudKitchens offered a way forward. “We saw that CloudKitchens was a great, low-cost solution that allowed us to continue on without a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant,” he says. Today, they’re delivering the same signature recipes to a new generation of customers, back up and running like they never left the market.
In Atlanta, Niko Lambrou came to CloudKitchens with a different goal in mind. After years of managing a 24-hour diner and working 80-hour weeks, he was ready for a setup that offered room to grow without becoming burnt out. From a single kitchen, he launched three separate delivery brands: Larry’s Late Night Eats, Cheesesteak City, and Hell Yeah Hamburgers.
“After about a year or so at CloudKitchens and once all the pieces of the puzzle and systems were in place, I was able to step away little by little,” he says. “Now on a good week, I’ll work 10 to 15 hours max. I feel truly blessed and fortunate.”
Every operator’s journey looks different, but for many, the result is the same. CloudKitchens gives them more flexibility, more control, and the opportunity to grow their brand in ways they couldn’t before.
A New Kind of Kitchen, A Different Kind of Future
Cloud Kitchens isn’t meant to be a replacement for full-service restaurants or the people who love dining out; these establishments will always have their place. What the company offers instead is a structure that reflects how customers interact with food today—through apps, online menus, and delivery drivers.
At the heart of CloudKitchens is a simple mission: to help food businesses unlock their full potential in a delivery-first era. The platform is built on the belief that anyone with a passion for great food deserves a real shot at success. It’s this vision—of a more diverse, dynamic, and accessible food industry—that continues to inspire the company’s work.
According to CloudKitchens, enterprise partners in the U.S. are seeing average yearly sales of $1.2 million per kitchen, with the top 10 percent reaching $2.5 million. While results vary, the numbers show how some businesses have used the model to scale quickly and efficiently. The kitchen may be invisible to the public, but for many operators, it’s where the future is being built—steadily, and on their own terms.
