There is a new restaurant trend that has been sweeping the country, due mostly in part of the popularity of home food delivery services like Grubhub and DoorDash. This semi-new trend is called "ghost restaurants".

So what are "Ghost Restaurants"?

Ghost restaurants (also called virtual restaurants), are food service businesses that serve customers exclusively by delivery and pick up, based on phone and online/app ordering. They can be a separate food vendor entity that operates out of an existing restaurant's kitchen, but the term "ghost kitchen" is often used as an interchangeable definition, although not exactly the same thing.

How did they become so popular?

Virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens rose in popularity pretty much out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic. When many brick-and-mortar establishments were shutdown and/or limited during the height of the pandemic, these options helped keep a mass amount of food establishments open.

According to Wikipedia:

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of the ghost kitchen industry by five years within three months in 2020. Many restaurants survive due to ghost kitchens and the food delivery options they make available. This spike in growth is predicted to potentially create a $1 trillion industry by 2030

What are examples of these locally?

Here is a list of ghost restaurant options in the Casper area, as well as the actual businesses they operate out of or are owned by:

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These are just the few examples I've seen so far locally, but there are several other chain restaurants throughout the country that have ghost kitchen and/or ghost restaurant options. As a matter of fact, at one point, there was a Casper Facebook page for a Korean BBQ, but for whatever reason, it never panned out.

Chances are, you've probably ordered from one of these locations before and just didn't know it, but as the saying goes: IYKYK (if you know, you know)... and knowing is half the battle.

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