Welcome to Virtual Kitchen Operator!

I started a takeout + delivery only food business, and shared every step of the way. It is by and large THE MOST DETAILED ACCOUNT that you can find on the entire internet of launching a digital first, off-premise restaurant.

In the 50 days leading up to launch, I wrote about every single thing that went into creating the business. Then after launch, I shared updates on strategies, tactics, economics, financials, real data, all the stuff thats "ungoogleable."

Read along on this site by clicking “50 in 50” in the top right corner, or click the button below to get a consolidated, 208 page PDF of the entire journey.

Here are the topics I covered through a series of 50 posts 👇

• 4 main reasons I am bullish on virtual kitchens, and why you should be too even after things “get back to normal”

• 6 challenges that virtual kitchen operators face

• What do I have at my disposal (background, skills, partners, assets) as I get started?

• Helpful definitions, terms, and players in the virtual/ghost/cloud kitchen ecosystem

• 7 operating models to launch a "virtual" kitchen, and which model we are choosing for our business

• Our long term vision for a virtual food hall company, and why it is a BETTER model for customers

• 15 "unknowns" that we wanted to solve for to prove that our idea had traction

• We're launching a virtual brand as a "Pop-up" out of a food truck - and heres why

• How to create a "quick & dirty" forecasted daily P&L for a virtual restaurant brand

• Here is how I segmented the different channels in which a customer might order from us

• What is the true cost of sales across each forecasted channel for a virtual kitchen

• Delivery app commissions won't go down over time. Here's my analysis + implications as a restaurant owner

• 3 key levers to pull to grow your top line revenue, and a laundry list of tactics to actually do this

• 6 key levers to pull to grow your bottom line profit, and a laundry list of tactics to actually do this

• We chose Smash Burger Sliders will be our first virtual brand... here are 9 critical reasons why

• A list of killer resources I used to "get smart" and ramp up fast in the virtual kitchens space

• 8 what-if scenarios for our pop-up virtual brand based pulling different revenue levers

• Our approach to defining our target customers and a target location to operate our virtual kitchen

• How to find a place to operate your food truck for a virtual brand

• Introducing Smash Brothers Sliders, a new delivery/takeout led restaurant concept in Columbus, OH launching December 2021

• 10 useful things you can find out about your competitors just from googling them

• 5 tips we used to make our design process go lightning fast for cheap

• 5 companies doing takeout packaging right, and how we are thinking about packaging for Smash Brothers Sliders

• Here are 30 cooking metrics we have completely dialed in as a result of our menu design / taste testing

• 20 things we learned from 2 weeks and 5 rounds of taste tests when crafting the menu for Smash Brothers Sliders

• How we approached pricing for our new virtual kitchen concept Smash Brothers Sliders

• We will be partnering with The Ohio Taproom, here are 8 reasons why

• We're investing in premium packaging. Here is our approach and the end to end process we went through

• We wanted to create a pre-launch "event" to build a buzz before our official go-live date. Heres why + what we did

• An overview of the virtual kitchen tech stack, and the tech providers we are choosing for our pop-up

• We're 18 days from launching, and here are 5 things I haven't figured out yet that I will need to solve soon + how I'm thinking about them

• Marketing mini-series part 1: How I plan to acquire customers

• Marketing mini-series part 2: How I plan to extend lifetime value of EXISTING customers

• Marketing Mini-series part 3: How I plan to convert customers ordering from 3rd party channels to our own website

• 30 things you can do to make the delivery/takeout experience BETTER

• Menu Deep Dive: Mains

• Menu Deep Dive: Sides, Sauces, and Drinks

• Market research on a competitor, and why we think we've built a better business

• My playbook to Instagram and Tik Tok

• My playbook to traditional media marketing

• The entire packaging process/setup we've created

• We did 3 test-run deliveries last Friday, here's how it went

• Playbook of design components needed to launch a brand in 2021

• We did a soft-launch, in-person event before we go live to the public... heres how it went

• The pros and cons of piloting a new brand on a food truck

• 10 things I've learned through this process

Business updates after we went live

Much of the above was rooted in reality, and was great thinking, but at the end of the day what matters is what you DO not what you THINK. This section contains a monthly recap of what actually happened during each month of our pop-up virtual restaurant brand launch. It ultimately concludes with a “where do we go from here” analysis piece.

This includes updates on strategies, tactics, economics, financials, real data, all the stuff thats "ungoogleable."

• How did things go - Month 1?

• How did things go - Month 2?

• How did things go - Month 3?

• Next steps - after assessing the 3 month pop-up, what did we decide to do next?