Virtual Insanity: Inside Travis Kalanick’s 23 Ghost Pizza Kitchens
CloudKitchens isn’t just converting distressed properties into warehouses filled with delivery-only kitchens, it has also quietly leased dozens of distressed storefronts in California, Nevada, and Illinois to convert them into pizzerias under an offshoot called Family Style. It wants a slice of the massive pizza delivery market, which accounts for 61% of the total $27bn US online delivery pie. According to a Family Style staff member who spoke with HNGRY, the company, founded three years ago by EDM DJ Steve Aoki’s manager, is just one of many subsidiaries owned by CloudKitchens’ parent, City Storage Systems LLC. The company is already a unicorn with over half a billion dollars of equity raised from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and Travis Kalanick personally. Ironically, traditional “Family Style” dining is the very type of restaurant that CloudKitchens is looking to disrupt.
If its warehouses are the hubs, these bespoke pizzerias are the independent spokes servicing the last mile. During a recent trip to Los Angeles, I visited half a dozen strip malls and other high vacancy lots now home to some of these generic storefronts exclusively designed to sell eight different private label and licensed brands of pizza, fried chicken, and convenience items on DoorDash, UberEats, Postmates, and Grubhub.
