A virtual restaurant is a dining establishment that offers a full menu and professionally prepares meals, but doesn't have a physical location for guests to visit. The offerings of a virtual restaurant exist solely online on platforms like Uber Eats, Glovo, Bolt, Wolt, Pyszne.pl, and is exclusively for delivery.
A virtual restaurant often shares a kitchen with a traditional restaurant to prepare orders. At Rebel Tang, we encourage combining virtual brands with brick-and-mortar kitchens. This way, the restaurant owner has a second, and sometimes third and fourth, menu available online only and prepares food for multiple restaurants in the same kitchen.
As a good example, let's take a local Italian restaurant – Trattoria Italiana, whose owner, Marek, would like to increase his monthly revenue and carry out more sales during hours when his Trattoria is not frequented by customers. Marek can open a virtual restaurant "Grube Pierogi" or "Prokuratura" and sell dumplings or simple chicken dishes. This action does not affect his basic business at all, and it generates additional revenue during hours when the restaurant does not have heavy traffic and dine-in customers.
A virtual restaurant can be located in many places, such as:
A stationary restaurant (e.g., Trattoria Italiana), which introduces virtual brands for delivery in addition to its regular kitchen operations.
An industrial kitchen that isn't a restaurant – often used for preparing catering meals, it can be dedicated solely to virtual restaurant operations, often referred to as Cloud Kitchens or Dark Kitchens.
A hotel kitchen, preparing dishes only for hotel guests.
A food truck, just like a stationary restaurant, can introduce virtual brands for delivery in addition to its own kitchen operations.