Being able to cook a simple meal and feed your family at the end of the day really feeds your soul.
Rachael Ray, NYTimes interview Sep, 2008
Within a few years, more than 50% of food from a restaurant is expected to be take out or delivery. App based delivery companies (GrubHub, Uber Eats, etc.) are planning to grab their share of that market in a big way. Their plan involves infrastructure – physical kitchens – that do not have a store front or seating. They are kitchens designed to prepare multiple types of cuisines and serve the purpose of multiple types of restaurants.
Rather than having a Chinese food shop, pizza place, diner, etc. in a strip mall, why not just combine these all under one roof in a state of the art highly efficient cooking space. They’ll win on pure efficiency but also have full technological integration for the digital world. Most notably, a drive thru (probably multiple).
You probably won’t even know the store you’re buying from on the app isn’t real. It will be priced well and probably just as good. Existing restaurants have been trying to succeed at the delivery game, with mixed success. Does that strip mall ever make you feel good by going there? I’m guessing probably not given the trend towards take out.
If you consider this trajectory inevitable, we’re going to see a lot of restaurants going out of business. Those that will thrive will have a product so good the Uber monster can’t eat it. And they’re going to have to compete against Uber’s technical marketing arm to get noticed.
What’s the upside here? The restaurants that survive will have to be so good that you’ll want to go there and enjoy it. Is there a future where someone cracks the code and breaks the take out trend? Maybe. But it’s not going to be home cooks and it seems not Rachel Ray. A strong proponent of home cooking for most of her career, Rachael Ray just as happy taking a percentage of your take out.