Vancouver's newest food hall with a separate bakery kitchen housing established local food brands is set to revolutionize the takeout dining game.
Club Kitchen, located in a deceptively large space at 988 Expo Blvd in downtown Vancouver, officially held its grand opening on Thursday, May 9th, although some restaurants have been serving food for several weeks.
The business boasts 13 fully equipped kitchens in two formats: 'Western style' (with flat top grill) and 'Wok style' for Asian cuisine. A customer can order from some or all restaurants at once, but he will only be billed once, and if he chooses delivery, he will only be charged a fee once.
A concierge associate in the Club Kitchen in-store area will coordinate the order for pick-up by the customer or delivery person.
Options include pizza, sushi, and fried chicken.
Club Kitchen's goals are two-fold, food and beverage operations manager JJ Fraser told VIA during a behind-the-scenes tour of the space. This business provides consumers with access to a variety of restaurants and allows those restaurants to access customers in the downtown area.
So far, nine of the 13 kitchens are occupied by restaurants. Barbarella Pizza, Hello Nori, Dragon Bowl, Indico, Hui Lau Siang, Chirpy Hut, Pearl Castle, Wings Chicken Shack, and Thai Away Home (restaurants that signed paperwork at the grand opening, Fraser noted).
Club Kitchen's approach is to work with established food companies rather than startups new to the industry to avoid the level of marketing often required to get a new concept off the ground.
Fraser explained that Club Kitchen is consolidated under one operating umbrella and carries the burden of being a leaseholder, so the restaurant has a licensing agreement for the space. This means things like maintenance, refrigeration, and Vancouver Coastal Health services will be centralized.
The one-time contract cost is $50,000, which Fraser noted is significantly less than what restaurateurs would pay to expand into commercial space in downtown Vancouver. Contract terms are flexible, but Fraser said most are three-year contracts. Club Kitchen restaurants participate in revenue sharing, and operating costs are split among the tenants.
Unique layout and special features of the kitchen
Each kitchen is equipped with everything a restaurant needs, from a dishwasher to prep space, but restaurants are free to make any necessary changes (at their expense) to ensure their private kitchens have what they need. I can. For Barbarella, that means a pizza oven, but Hello Nori added a special grill to create a skewer line dedicated to the menu for Club Kitchen customers.
All kitchens have unique layouts and are accessed from a central hallway behind the storefront. However, the club kitchen space has one important feature: the kitchen has a window that opens to the street.
Fraser joked that he has spent a considerable amount of time in windowless restaurant kitchens, noting how beneficial natural light is for restaurant workers. The windows allow customers from outside to peer into the kitchen and catch a glimpse of their food being prepared.
Each restaurant has its own in-kitchen terminal to manage orders, which are then brought to the front of the store when ready. On the customer side, if he orders from multiple Club Kitchen restaurants at once, for each restaurant in the order he will see the initial order number appended with 1, 2, 3, etc.
Club kitchens are “completely different” from ghost kitchens
As food delivery and takeout continue to be popular dining options for Vancouverites, Club Kitchen's model is similar to other models that exist in the city, that have come and gone, or that are currently in development. It's not exactly the same. Club Kitchen is not a kiosk, vending machine, or ghost kitchen.
For example, Food Republic was positioned as a high-tech food hall (robots make salads). It was set to open in 2023, but has since closed and will be replaced by Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, a modern-day Automat franchise. Metro Vancouver is home to a number of commissary kitchens, such as YVR Prep, which provide shared space for small, often new food businesses that produce packaged products or offer limited takeout and delivery. Masu.
However, the term “ghost kitchen” may be the most familiar. This concept means he will be home to one or more other restaurant brands without having their own space, in an existing restaurant or commercial kitchen. Club Kitchen is “not at all” a ghost kitchen, Fraser clarified.
Customers can order through Club Kitchen's website, and there is also an in-store kiosk for ordering on the spot.Orders are accepted daily from 11am to 10pm
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