#this would be like ordering chuck e cheese pizza for delivery. when chuck e cheese was barely a company.

[bravevolunteer]

so much to be unpacked with this poster. "we deliver" the diner is still the small town business and it's mainly known for kids entertainment and performance WHO was ordering fazbear delivery. did michael have to deliver pizzas. i hope he did. not to mention 1-800-083 alright you think you're funny huh

[manicplank]

Can you do who makes the best pizzas headcanons? I wanna know your opinion on who’s the best and worst pizza chef

okok quick one before I go to bed

Who makes the best pizza?

Peppino: Actually makes a PHENOMENAL pizza. He carefully crafts everything from scratch. It's a shame he doesn't get enough customers. Maybe it's due to the pizzeria being in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Gustavo: Almost as good as Peppino's. Just a touch different. As hard as he tries, he cannot recreate a pizza just like Peppino's.

Mr. Stick: Can't even cook a frozen pizza. Burns it. Orders out, but not from Peppino's.

Pepperman: Always puts too much peppers on it. Red, green, orange, poblano, habanero, jalapeño, chilli. Every pepper that exists. Also puts black pepper, because he thinks it's an actual pepper. It comes out soggy and tastes awful.

The Vigilante: Has never made a pizza from scratch. Probably would make an okay pizza if he had. The dough and sauce would be a bit below mediocre, but the cheese would be amazing (just don't ask how he made the cheese).

The Noise: HATES pizza, duh. Will destroy any pizza he sees, not just Peppino's. Is banned from most pizza restaurants. Pizza Hut? Banned. Domino's? Banned. MOD Pizza? Banned. Chuck E Cheese? EXTRA BANNED (he tried to steal the entire play area). The list goes on. God help the poor delivery drivers that he's assaulted for delivering pizza.

Noisette: Secretly likes pizza but doesn't bring it around The Noise. She can't for the life of her make a pizza from scratch. The dough ends up filling an entire room because she put too much of one ingredient in. The sauce probably ends up burning a hole through the earth. She just put slices of American cheese on there thinking it would work.

Fake Peppino: His pizzas are... weird. They're soggy, drippy... I don't think they even count as a solid matter. Don't eat it. You'll probably die. It's made of... um... Dough? Really weird, wet dough... And is that blood? You should probably start running. There was regular mozzarella on there, but he ate it.

Pizzahead: HEAR ME OUT. Makes an amazing pizza, but isn't anywhere near as good as Peppino's. He probably ruins it with preservatives. Uses the tiniest bit of himself, usually just a pinch of cheese off of his arm. Still, unnerving. When he makes the pizza, it's good, but his factory pizzas FUCKING SUCK.

Pillar John: Love this guy, but he probably puts literally anything and everything on a pizza. Every topping imaginable, it's on there. Probably even puts sushi on a pizza, because that's what he thought sushi pizza meant.

Gerome: After all he's been through, he doesn't like pizza anymore. He used to like pizza, but once everything happened with the tower, he quickly began to despise it.

[nickgerlich]

Ghost In The Kitchen

It was a trend that was born before COVID, but it took a pandemic to send it into orbit. After all, restaurants were off-limits for in-store dining in many cities and states, and delivery was the only option. It gave restaurants time to experiment with other menu items and even completely different restaurant concepts.

All without doing a thing, other than listing them on delivery apps. I’m talking about the virtual brands that many large chains own, but you don’t know about. You probably won’t find them in the phone book (although they may have a website), and you certainly won’t see any signs on poles or buildings. They exist only in the digital realm.

Certain types of foods—pizza, burgers, and wings—work well in the virtual world, because they travel well. Thus, they are the most common items you will find available on delivery apps. If you have a craving for meat loaf and mashed potatoes, you might just be out of luck.

Here’s how it works. Virtual brands rely on ghost kitchens, which really aren’t ghostly at all, but are located inside the same space as the kitchen in a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Think of it as double- or triple-dipping if you will, but it gives a lot of freedom to chains not only to test new items, but also reach out to different target markets.

Case in point: Would you ever go to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner without little kids? Of course not. That’s almost like punishment for being parents. But their ghost kitchen also does business as Pasqually’s Pizza and Wings. That sounds a lot more appealing, doesn’t it?

Denny's is the latest to double down on virtual brands. While they already have The Burger Den and The Meltdown, they are adding Banda Burrito and Franklin Junction. Who wants to go to Denny’s? Anybody? OK, let’s order out from Banda and watch clips of the Rangers putting it to the D-backs last night. Burritos can travel well, too.

See what I mean? At a time when some restaurants are struggling, and especially during certain dayparts, virtual brands open up a lot of new opportunities. Factor in rising labor costs, like in California, and this begins to make a lot of sense.

In some regards this is not much different from major consumer packaged goods manufacturers selling off unutilized capacity to make private label goods for others. In this case, though, the private label is their own, and they are making good use of their kitchen facilities.

I know what you’re thinking. Is it possible that the food available in a virtual brand might be the same thing served in the OG chain? You bet. It could very well be the same burgers, wings, and pizza. But it may also be variants or completely new twists on products, yet are still compatible with the workflow of the kitchen. And, if one of those works well in the virtual world, it could easily be added to the other menu.

None of this would be possible were it not for mobile apps and third-party delivery. While it may hypothetically have been possible for a pizza joint to create a virtual brand and do their own delivery, I can only imagine the hassle of having to change the magnetic signs atop the delivery vehicles, depending on what you were delivering.Partnering with DoorDash and Uber Eats maintains the anonymity.

Which brings up another issue. Is it disingenuous for a chain to masquerade as another brand? Chains are not being fully transparent about this, but then again, these virtual brands may also be the worst-kept secrets in town. They don’t seem to mind talking about it, and haven’t tried to stop news articles from explaining the practice.

An online review for Pasqually’s made me laugh out loud: “Upon further research, I apparently ordered pizza from Chuck E Cheese.” Ha ha ha!

I’m good with all this, though. It’s a win-win for everyone, and, if you really like what you got from Pasqually’s Pizza and Wings, it demonstrates the perceptual power of a brand. Chuck E. Cheese may have been repulsive, but a rose by any other name is…well, Pasqually, I suppose, in this case. And suddenly it’s OK. Then again, maybe not.

Suddenly a burrito sounds pretty good. Make that a breakfast burrito, but by my own hand. Sorry, Denny’s. I can’t wait. I’m hungry now.

Dr “Load It Up” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[fishmech]

they used to make more money that way back in 2021 (when the article you posted is from) sure. but these days the business is collapsing:

Investors plowed billions of dollars into the space, and start-ups and established companies made plans to expand. Some Kroger stores had ghost kitchens, and Wendy’s announced plans in 2021 to open 700 delivery-only locations. That year, the commercial real estate company CBRE predicted that ghost kitchens would account for 21 percent of restaurant sales by 2025. But as the pandemic subsided and customers returned to dining inside restaurants, large chains found themselves squeezed by overtaxed kitchens and rising customer complaints, forcing them to reconsider their delivery-only strategy. Wendy’s has pulled back from its plans, and Kroger shut down its ghost kitchens last year.

During the pandemic, Chuck E. Cheese created Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings, a virtual restaurant that was featured on delivery apps like GrubHub and DoorDash and offered more grown-up versions of the pizza served for children’s birthday parties in the restaurants. “We were in the pizza business already, so we’re not serving something that’s foreign to our kitchens,” said David McKillips, the chief executive of Chuck E. Cheese. “It’s in our DNA.” The delivery-only business has slowed as diners have headed back for stuffed-crust pizza and Skee-Ball, and some of the favorite Pasqually’s dishes are now on the Chuck E. Cheese menus, Mr. McKillips said.

During the pandemic, Brinker International, which owns the Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant chains, created two virtual brands: It’s Just Wings and Maggiano’s Italian Classics. Both were embraced by hungry Americans who were tired of cooking at home. But as more diners sought to share mozzarella sticks in person, the company’s restaurants became overwhelmed with orders, making it difficult for its kitchens to juggle the brands. As a result, Brinker shut down Maggiano’s Italian Classics last year and has pared It’s Just Wings, instead putting some of the fan favorites on its restaurant menus.

ghost kitchens being legal is weird to me. like why does chick e cheese have a side hustle as a fake restaurant

[lonedailydoodle]

Daily Doodle 157/365 - June 6, 2017

I know how to drive well, I swear!! Don’t judge me!

I mean.. I drove a lot today and my car is fine!

Today I had another day out with Pixie and were going to a friend’s house which is a considerable distance from our city, so we got gas and left. The drive there was super fun, but first we had to get past a roadblock cuz of a landslide, and the detour was an extremely steep road. Anything going up or down in height affects Pixie’s ears easily since he’s a city person, so he lives at sea level unlike me who lives at the top of a mountain. Either way, after that detour, the route had some beautiful grass mountains before winding roads, the usual Puertorrican mountain routes, but it was a long route

Now our original plan was to hang out inside a Chuck E. Cheese near this friend’s house then go to the nearby mall.. but after realizing the Chuck E. Cheese was not fun, we skipped that and the nearby mall entirely and decided to go to the mall we always go to

Thing is that it was a long distance away, I had already driven a long distance but we still went. I took an even longer route to avoid tolls but got there safely.. well.. holding my phone in one hand and steering with the other makes it hard when my GPS loses signal inside tunnels and then tells me to take a turn at the last second.. that Uber driver thing now sounds like a bad idea

ANYWAYS, we got there, hung out, ate at a lot of different restaurants, didn’t buy cards this time but I bought Pixie a Fall Out Boy album he really wanted to get for some time now :D So that’s goodie, he hugged me lots <3</p>

We left later, dropped Pixie’s friend after another long drive and took that previous mountain road back.. in the dark.. it wasn’t that scary though since I’m used to them, but it was new to me, so I had to be careful

Once back at the city, we stopped at the usual pizza place but I didn’t get a pizza as I had been eating too much of it whenever I go out with Pixie. He instead got a calzone for himself and ate it all. At the last minute I wanted at least one slice of pizza to not go home… slightly hungry, but when I asked for one they were not making any more since it was almost closing time anyway. But that’s fine, I get to not spend as much money, even if Pixie wanted to pay the pizza slice. Either way, he would be paying back the album I got him, I want him to have it as a gift

When I dropped off Pixie, he asked if we could stargaze and talk again, but it was already far too late, so maybe another night. I then left but this time kept looking at my rearview mirror just in case. Cuz he told me I drove away and he wanted to give me another hug, but I had already left.. that broke my heart badly. So I now keep an eye and this time I saw him come out and wave at me, I turned and he was holding a package. I smiled cuz I knew what it was already. He thought it was a package he ordered until he saw a lot of pokemon cards inside. A dear awesome follower of mine saw in my doodles that Pixie is a huge fan of collecting Pokemon cards, so he decided with me that it would be great to surprise Pixie with cards. We arranged it and they got sent. It was a bit weird cuz it said the package was available for delivery, and a delivery attempt had been made, so I would have had to spoil the surprise and tell him so we could pick it up, but it seems it got delivered!

All in all, today was a long driving day with lots of little gifts involved for my Pixie <3 I’m so lovey dovey now, nobody can stop me</p>

EDIT: OH! And Pixie got his learners permit to drive today as well! Woo!!