The Next Generation Virtual Concepts for Restaurants

Apr 23, 2021

The Next Generation Virtual Concepts for Restaurants | Shopurfood
The next generation restaurant business

If these last few months of the pandemic, it's opening the windows to innovation in the restaurant industry. Concepts like the ghost kitchen are becoming more popular than third-party services which contribute a major part in delivery-only restaurants. When dine-in options were shut down in restaurants suddenly across the world, every restaurant came up with new trends to streamline takeaway and delivery formats.

The traditional dine-in concept is the most frequent directive in restaurant businesses. When businesses found a lack of possibilities to reach their customers, they considered to-go options. Even before the pandemic hit, restaurants underwent this shift towards delivery and off-premises models.

In 2019, the National Restaurant Association reported that off-premises will drive most of the restaurant sales by 2030. Also, Ordermark's co-founder and CEO Alex Canter say, "10 years of progress may have happened in a couple of months, not out of desire, but really out of necessity."

Some brands have powered up their business with standalone mobile ordering applications while others built curbside pickup programs. However, third-party delivery platforms are popular but don't fit in every business digital ecosystem. It may charge restaurants high for delivery expenses and handling costs as the demand is very high across businesses trying to stay in the marketplace.

The restaurants are trying out different ways to fast-forward this delivery and takeaways, right from integrating virtual restaurant concepts to changing the cooking process itself. We can be clear about three things in accordance with the shift in the time frame including, the digital advances are approaching in history as a footnote, most restaurant brands will be tied with the digital landscape and the concept of flexibility to meet an unpredictable future.

Virtual concepts are booming in restaurants!

In 2020, Third-party delivery services were considered as broader and creative build-in solutions for food service models. As we know there are millions of daily app users who paved the way for third-party delivery platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash to support restaurant business with digital ideas. This virtual-only approach can be encouraging for the consumers who used to try new restaurants, which are not a part of a brick-and-mortar business.

The digital ecosystem will not disappear in the post-Covid scenario and it will only keep flourishing. However, digitally savvy consumers even before the pandemic were using apps to order their meals every day. These trends will continue to increase among forward-thinking brands and digital marketplace to find creative solutions than ghost kitchens of 2020.

The rise of virtual concepts is more evident with the following examples, a virtual restaurant concept was created to deliver the best experience for customers in New York's Central Park. Also, there are virtual concepts exclusive for downtown hotels, to accept orders from the kiosks which are taken under contract in hotel lobbies. The most popular delivery-only and ghost-kitchen model is the best example to host virtual concepts in the restaurant industry.

For the first time in global restaurant market entrants, we could see there is a shift of big brands to virtual concepts in the industry. Here you may get questions like, what if we add virtual concepts in the restaurant itself? What if the restaurant plays with margins? What if you don't need a restaurant itself to operate a restaurant business?

Every business is trying new trends to keep up with the advancements happening in the digital world of post-Covid. Moreover, the virtual concept is set to float as the mainstream in the restaurant industry.

Let's take LA's ZEF BBQ, Which is started as an Instagram's barbecue pop-up in the Simi Valley that suddenly became the second-largest food chain in the U.S. marketplace. With the lethal combination of social media presence, word of mouth, and online ordering tools, you can reach more heights in this digital space.

Bottom Line

The next generation of restaurants is coming up with new digital sophistication to streamline their business towards growth. For digital-savvy customers, you must essentially level up the selling strategies and make use of digital ordering tools. Even social media pop-up restaurants have obtained global reach as the rules of customer engagement are only changing in the restaurant business.

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Kiruthika Blogger

Kiruthika

Kiruthika is a Content writer and blogger at Qono Technologies. Other than her interest in writing, she can be seen listening to songs, reading or traveling.