[Massplanners] Ghost Kitchens/Cloud Kitchens -- on wheels!

[Dwight Merriam]

Ghost kitchens on wheels raise some really interesting zoning problems....
here's an excerpt from my 2021 Annual ZiPLeR Awards issue (Zoning
and Planning Law Report, published by West/Thomson Reuters):


*"I’m the ZEO and I’ll Have Fries with That" Award*

This first time ever ZiPLeR Award goes to all the unfortunate zoning
enforcement officers who now have to deal with an entirely new use that
resists categorization – ghost kitchens on wheels.[i] <#_edn1>

Ghost kitchens,[ii] <#_edn2> as we have come to experience them during the
pandemic, are ones that prepare food for name brand restaurants but are not
located at any dining establishment. You may order your food online from
your favorite nearby dive, but it is prepared in a ghost kitchen elsewhere,
picked up by a delivery service (e.g., Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub),
and seamlessly delivered to you.

 Now, Reese Technologies, the largest parking lot owner in the country with
over 5,000 properties under management and bolstered by the $1 billion that
the Japanese investment firm SoftBank raised for it last year, is bringing
ghost kitchens on wheels to a parking lot near you. There are going to be
plenty of them. Wendy’s, for example, recently entered into an agreement
with Reef under which Reef is to open 700 ghost kitchens for them in this
country, Britain, and Canada.

 The Reef ghost kitchens are full-service kitchens on wheels, preparing as
many as 300 to 400 meals on weekdays at one location in Massachusetts. The
meals they send out are in packaging from the restaurant you ordered from,
so you will have no idea that they came from this new kind of meals on
wheels.

When one of these ghost kitchens shows up in the parking lot next to your
luxury building, who you going to call? Not Ghostbusters, but the ZEO.
Ghost kitchens are on wheels, so they are not structures under most zoning
regulations. They are commercial operations for sure, but many of the
commercial parking lots are going to be in commercial districts where
restaurants are permitted. Does this use require a certificate of zoning
compliance or similar recognition?



------------------------------

[i] <#_ednref1> Anissa Gardizy, “The newest ‘ghost kitchen’ could be coming
to a parking lot near you,” Boston Globe (Nov. 28, 2021)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/28/business/newest-ghost-kitchen-could-be-coming-parking-lot-near-you/

[ii] <#_ednref2> Anissa Gardizy, “What are ‘ghost restaurants’? That spot
on your delivery app might not actually exist,” Boston Globe (May 23,
2021).
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/23/business/that-restaurant-you-see-your-delivery-app-might-not-actually-exist/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link



Dwight Merriam,
FAICP
www.dwightmerriam.com

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 6:12 PM Nathan Chung via MassPlanners <
massplanners at masscptc.org> wrote:

> Dear Travis,
> I think ghost kitchens/cloud kitchens are typically hosted in shared
> commercial kitchens, so if you look for shared commercial kitchens, you
> will find them most likely. Here is one in Somerville:
> https://www.foundationkitchen.com/ If you go to
> https://www.foundationkitchen.com/shop, you can see their members and
> order.
>
> And Serve Food MA in Holyoke is a comm kitchen in my region of Western
> MA:
> https://servema.com/ They specifically market themselves as a cloud
> kitchen provider. Not sure how well they are doing.
>
> Nathan Chung, Grants Administrator
> Planning & Sustainability
> City of Northampton
> 210 Main St, City Hall, Northampton, MA  01060
> nchung at northamptonma.gov
> (413) 587-1262
> www.NorthamptonMA.gov/PLAN
> --
> MassPlanners mailing list
> MassPlanners at masscptc.org
> http://masscptc.org/mailman/listinfo/massplanners_masscptc.org
>
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