Orlando food hall scene goes virtual thanks to CloudKitchens' new Dollins Food Hall, one of the city's first virtual food halls
One year ago on February 11th 2020, we were the first to tell you that former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick's virtual restaurant industry-dominating CloudKitchens brand (Website) was working on opening a location in Orlando.
The facility has opened for business according to its website and tenant delivery app listings. It can contain up to 41 individual kitchens according to city documents.
The notoriously secretive CloudKitchens located its Orlando facility in a one story industrial building at 18 N. Dollins Avenue (MAP) one block west and 2.5 blocks north of Camping World Stadium in the Westfield neighborhood near downtown Orlando.
This is by far the largest but not the only virtual kitchen in Orlando. Check out our handy Orlando Virtual Kitchen Guide to see more.
Dollins Food Hall (Website | Instagram) is the public-facing brand created by CloudKitchens the facility will use both online and off. The CloudKitchens brand will not be used, which is typical for several CloudKitchens locations across the country.
Dollins Food Hall is a virtual food hall. Customers order through mobile apps and get their food through delivery or pick-up. No one is allowed past the pick up area inside the building.
The number of virtual restaurant brands that that facility has the potential to pump out is almost limitless. Each kitchen can sell multiple brands at once.
Twenty restaurant brands are listed on the virtual food hall's website. However, the facility can contain up to 41 individual kitchens according to city documents.
Also, more brands than listed on the website claim the physical address as their own on several delivery platforms and review sites.
For example, youtube-famous Mr Beast Burger has someone in that building wrapping up burgers and hot chicken sandwiches according to the brand's app and Beast's website, Notcho Momma is in there packing up lobster tails and shrimp according to Yelp, and Marco's Pizza is slingin' the pies (into to-go boxes) according to Uber Eats. Below are the virtual restaurants the website cops to:
The giant and well-funded virtual (or ghost to some) kitchen and restaurant company is expected to increase delivery options for locals and open new business opportunities for budding and existing restauranteurs.
Before construction commenced the building contained 25,304 SF of space. The estimated cost of the project, which included all new mechanical, plumbing, electrical, AV/T, fire protection and fire alarm systems, was $1,146,687.
The locations of CloudKitchens are in underutilized and distressed real estate parcels it buys through a holding company called City Storage Systems. The company targets "parking, retail, and industrial and then repurpose(s) the spaces for digital-age businesses" according to The Real Deal. They're sometimes located in Opportunity Zones, areas of the country in which the Federal government provides tax incentives for investing capital there.
After a $400 million investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, CloudKitchens could be worth about $5 billion according to Wall Street Journal. (Paywall)
Along with delivery-only restaurants, Kalanick's CloudKitchens provides kitchen space for established restaurants and chefs looking to expand their businesses or use commissary kitchen space, restaurant operators looking to leverage their brand into a delivery-only concept, entrepreneurs looking for a fast and inexpensive way to test their concepts and build their brand, and food truck operators looking to use commissary kitchen space and expand into delivery.
All of this began to pop up across the country thanks to the proliferation of delivery apps like Uber Eats and GrubHub, and grown exponentially by recent world events.
Those interested in snagging a rental kitchen spot can click here to learn more.
View our Orlando Virtual Kitchen Guide
View our Orlando Food Hall Guide