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- Entrepreneurs in South Africa are adopting the "dark kitchen" model, which has seen success in Europe and Latin America.
- This allows food services to operate in lockdown conditions where delivery is permitted but gathering remains banned.
- The dark kitchen model cuts through overhead costs of managing a restaurant, and more businesses are expected to adopt it as new consumer behaviours take hold.
- But it is not necessarily plug and play for established restaurants, and financial troubles may remain for these businesses.
Since South Africa was hit by the Covid-19 novel coronavirus and the subsequent national lockdown aimed at curbing its spread, the restaurant industry has arguably been the hardest hit among businesses.
Restrictions to social gatherings and general movements took the wind out of restaurants' sails. However, some have adopted a model known as dark kitchens in order to continue functioning during levels of lockdown where food delivery is allowed without the overhead costs of a restaurant.
In April, Famous Brands, the owner of Steers and Wimpy, announced that it would cut funding to its long-time struggling British fast food operation, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, due to a deterioration in sales caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Digitised ordering
Dark kitchens are a food service and restaurant model which focuses on digitised ordering and courier services instead of a front-facing customer experience. The benefits including paying less for costs associated with rent, décor, maintenance and staff.
Entrepreneurs are adopting the model, which has seen success in Europe and Latin America. One such entrepreneur is Johannesburg-based Brik Cafe owner Sasha Simpson. Simpson said dark kitchens were present in South Africa before lockdown but gathered pace because of the benefits.
"What has started happening in the industry before lockdown, restaurants built themselves because Uber Eats would only service a 5km radius. Brik wanted to go further. Dark kitchens were being started before lockdown," said Simpson.
Simpson said Brik Cafe integrated into co-working space provider, Workshop 17. She said Brik Café also relied on its sister a catering company, Prepped By Sasha, to do pantry offerings catering kitchen model, similar to a dark kitchen.
Simpson said when Brik reopened in May, it was making 5% of what it made in March but adapted with time. She said while Brik figured out how to stay active during the lockdown, most restaurants that do not have dark kitchens might want to test the model before committing to it.
Grace Harding, Ocean Basket CEO and spokesperson for The Restaurant Collective said there were still too many logistical gaps around the dark kitchen model for it to be a viable alternative for established restaurants.
"Do you then tell your customers you are no longer a restaurant? If you have been a sit-down restaurant for 5 or 25 years, people love to come and eat at your place. Now you say – no more. Then Covid is over and they want to go to their restaurant and…? It disappeared," said Harding.
Economist Simon Brown said while more dark kitchens are expected to emerge in the new economic realities, changing an existing restaurant into a dark kitchen is going to be easy and some established restaurants are likely to close down.
"I think the dark kitchen model is going to be huge in our future. In lockdown you can do delivery but not sit-down. We will see restaurants go into the dark kitchen. The trick is it will help the restaurant industry going forward, but for an individual restaurant, it will be difficult," Brown said.
Brown said dark kitchens were not plug and play for all restaurants; rather, it was likely that these businesses would close down only to be replaced by a business best fitted for the dark kitchen model.
