October 31, 2023

1889: The Naples coast is pulling you in and out. Instead of feeling the breeze on your face, walking on the beach or being with a forbidden lover,  you stand before an oven burning the last of your eyebrows away. You finish and garnish a beautiful meal, a pizza. Someone takes it immediately and runs up the palace stairs. King Umberto and Queen Margherita are pleased with their meal. This became the first delivery recorded in history. 

Throughout the 20th century, deliveries became an increasingly common method of getting goods to consumers who were unwilling or unable to pick them up in person. Then, sometime in the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, ghost kitchens were born. 

Ghost kitchens are not kitchens where ghouls make spaghetti and meatballs, but rather online based restaurants: a storefront that exists purely online. This type of business is accessible for those who prefer to avoid any type of interaction with others, for those who may not be able to pick up their own food, and for anyone who may not have transportation. 

Ghost kitchens provide several benefits for their owners. They cut down on the use of energy and water, lessening their carbon footprint. They have fewer expenses, including overhead and upkeep. The COVID-19 quarantines also exacerbated a new level of social isolation among consumers. 

There are downsides to these otherworldly establishments, however.

“Sit down restaurants are going [to] focus more on their customers,” Norton culinary student Vincent Pike said. 

Ghost kitchens provide no option to sit down, no option to pick up a sticky menu from the early 2000s (covered in primitive clipart, of course), no college student with a notepad ready to take your order—no interactions with others whatsoever. The only interaction you could have with a ghost kitchen is your order going in and the delivery person dropping off your food. 

When attending restaurants in person, you not only get food that is better, you get a better understanding of what food means to the employees, people who have devoted their lives to serving amazing food. 

Food is more than delivery. It is an experience, and it is something people used to love.  

“It is rewarding, especially when I work really hard on something I really enjoy,” Wadsworth culinary student Katelyn Hooper said. “[I love] when people are smiling and telling me that they’re enjoying the food.”