Food Network celebrity chef Guy Fieri is rapidly rolling out a new delivery-only restaurant chain that adopts the “ghost kitchen” concept instead of a static brick-and-mortar sit-down establishment.
Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchens are operated out of existing brick-and-mortar kitchens. The new chain has multiple outlets in 24 states, with most locations having launched in the last two months.
Flavortown is partnered with Robert Earl, the Planet Hollywood founder, in a company called Virtual Dining Concepts (VDC), a company that trades in virtual kitchens to help existing restaurants gain extra revenue from celebrity-branded concepts. This marks a return to New York for Earl who brought the All-Star Cafe to New York twenty years ago with partners including hockey’s Wayne Gretzky.
With Earl and Virtual Dining’s expertise, Flavortown has found homes in Buca di Beppo, Bertucci’s, and Brio kitchens across the country. Food can be ordered through the Flavortown Kitchen website or through most delivery services including DoorDash, UberEats, Postmates and Grubhub.
The menu showcases a colorful array of Fieri-branded creations including jalapeño pig poppers stuffed with andouille sausage and pimento cream cheese and wrapped in bacon; bourbon brown sugar barbecue wings; and S-M-Cheesesteak egg rolls. For those unfamiliar with Fieri-speak, SMC stands for “Super Melty Cheese,”.
Fieri is best known for his Food Network shows Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy’s Grocery Games. He’s built up an empire that includes his name on 14 other brands around the world.
With a goal of the second time being a charm, Fieri returns to new space in Times Square. Flavortown Kitchen is located at 1540 Broadway, at the corner of West 45th Street and Seventh Avenue. The NYC burger-and-wings shop is one of dozens of Flavortown Kitchen shops that have recently opened up across the country, with other locations popping up in cities including Las Vegas, Dallas, Boston, and Washington, D.C.
Fieri’s joins several celebrity concepts under Earl’s Virtual Dining Concepts umbrella. Virtual Dining Concepts is also behind rapper Tyga’s delivery-only chicken “bites” , Mario Lopez and DJ Pauly D. Mariah Carey’s cookie delivery business, among other ventures,
“We are restaurant owners that have created a company for restaurant owners,” Earl explained. “Virtual Dining Concepts (VDC) offers traditional restaurant owners a low risk, all in one solution to launch a profitable delivery-only restaurant concept in their existing kitchen operations, with zero upfront fees.”
Recognized as a leading figure in the hospitality, lodging, gaming and food & beverage industries, Earl is the former CEO of Hard Rock Cafe and current founder / chairman of Planet Hollywood International, Inc. and Earl Enterprises, which specializes in restaurant and hospitality branding, marketing and operations with a vast collection of brick and mortar restaurants including Buca di Beppo®, Bertucci’s®, Earl of Sandwich®, Chicken Guy®, Asian Street Eats™, Mixology101™, Seaside on the Pier™, Rock & Reilly’s®, Warrior™, and Tequila Taqueria™.
In 2020, Earl acquired two additional brands specializing in Italian Cuisine, Brio® Italian Grille and Bravo!® Italian Kitchen. Now together with his son, Robbie Earl, they’re leading the wave of the future of restaurants with virtual kitchens and delivery-only restaurant concepts.
The new Fieri venture has been spurred by the pandemic’s shut-down of indoor dining and limited outdoor options, ghost kitchens – sometimes called virtual brands or delivery-only concepts are booming. Market research firm Euromonitor estimates they could be a $1 trillion business by 2030. The ghost kitchen concept already has spawned several companies, including CloudKitchens, started by former Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.
To learn more about Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen, visit the website.
