What are ghost kitchens? They are facilities, where food for delivery services is often prepared. Sometimes, they’re shared by several companies. In 2015, NBC New York wrote an article about such kitchens, in which they warned about some dubious practices, lack of necessary permits and regulations.

These facilities have been existing for a long time, but their number increased especially rapidly during the pandemic of COVID-19. Restaurants and cafes were closing, and being afraid of catching the virus, people stopped going to the still-remaining ones and started using delivery food services. Because of this, ghost kitchens began to thrive and play a much bigger role in the whole industry.

But do those kitchens function legally? Yes, but it’s not so simple. There are some nuances about them, about which we’re going to tell you in this article.

How are ghost kitchens regulated?

The authorities still haven’t decided clearly how these kitchens should be regulated. Usually, a company needs an official brand to be regulated, but ghost kitchens aren’t even full-fledged companies. They lack waiters, storefronts, seating and things like that.

Authorities are concerned that meals cooked in ghost kitchens don’t meet safety norms and standards. All companies that specialize in preparing and packing food need to have a FDA license. The exceptions to this rule are restaurants — that must be licensed too, but their licenses are given by local authorities.

But how can ghost kitchens be classified? To which category do they belong? Since these facilities provide food only for delivering services, consumers don’t visit them and thus can’t see health inspection letter grades or certificates that are usually displayed at ordinary cafes and restaurants. Delivery services often don’t demonstrate them either.

What can you do?

In case a client gets a poisoning from ghost kitchen food and reasonably wants to file a lawsuit, it’s very complicated to figure out the culprit. If several food companies use one kitchen, especially a temporary one, it’s almost impossible to find who is to blame. So, unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it. And if you wish to order food from a delivery service, just hope that you’ll be lucky and won’t get unwell — or simply avoid ordering anything from these services at all. It’s better to go to your local grocery shop and buy something to eat there. Or go to a traditional restaurant — after all, the COVID rates have already decreased and it’s much safer now.