When you want to run a restaurant it requires you to be highly skilled and knowledgeable in every aspect which is needed in the food industry.
Each and every minute details become of high importance when you want to reveal your love for food.
Right from choosing the space to start your restaurant to managing the parking space. Each and every detail must be taken into consideration before starting the restaurant.
Alright what if all the things work perfectly but the food served doesn’t make up to the hearts of the individuals.
That’s the picture where cloud kitchen plays an important role.
The owner of cloud kitchen does not need to manage all the things as compared to traditional restaurant owners.
All the things can get easily managed by the owner renting the space for the cloud kitchen.
The cloud kitchen just needs to focus on the quality of the food without worrying about anything else.
Investing in a cloud kitchen? Is it fruitful?
Alright let’s dig the topic much deeper…
Cloud kitchens can be started with low budgets and it becomes much easier and convenient to maintain them.
We all before making any decision think of the possibilities whether it’s pocket-friendly or not?
The main features of cloud kitchen are as follows:
Location
When we talk about traditional restaurants then we need to ensure that the location is the centre of the city to grab more visitors but when it comes to cloud kitchens we just need to make sure that the location it’s just the functionality.
As all the customers are drivers who are coming down to the restaurants to pick up the order the cloud kitchen received on its app or website.
The location just makes sure that the delivery gets to the right place and nothing else. Here are the steps to ensure the location that you choose is perfect or not?
Target
You must choose a location nearby where your target audience lies.
Cost-Effectiveness
You must choose a place which reduces the rent and which includes all the required facilities.
Amenities
As a cloud kitchen, you must know the amenities that you will be requiring for the drivers allowing enough parking space and facility to track their respective orders.
Finding a place with proper electricity and drainage system becomes the need of an hour as you will be continuously.
Accessibility
Though the cloud kitchen might not be accessible to the customers but yes it can be easily accessible to all the drivers and with proper parking facilities.
- Licenses
To eradicate all the hassle, the cloud kitchen must procure all the licenses and their agreements to evade all the negativities which are likely to arise in the near future.
It becomes more crucial to get the required licenses whether it is FSSAI licenses, GST registration, and all the NOC required from the fire department must be done within the time period before the commencement of the cloud kitchen.
It will become much easier if you hire an expert which is well-versed with the procedures for procuring the license. - Online Ordering And Delivery Management
As cloud kitchens work completely on taking up the orders, processing it and then delivering it.
The management of deliveries can be taken care of by the third party food distributors such as Swiggy, Food panda and even Zomato. Such companies will charge you around 7-30% on the amount of the orders.
There are many restaurants who are breaking up their ties with all such third-party distributors and there are various reasons for it one such reason is that the drivers deliver the food which is not hot and fresh.
Though the list keeps on getting longer and longer.
As the cloud kitchen cannot have their own outlets it becomes much more important to have their own website which takes the orders from customers and then the customers can onl;y drive down to the location to receive their order.
In this manner, all the possibilities of the cloud kitchen can be assisted in a feasible manner.
Depending upon the popularity of the cloud kitchen, the owners might also start taking orders via telephone by setting up a call centre in the region. - Point Of Sale Software
As orders reach the kitchen in a variety of ways and through various platforms it becomes much more important to get the proper mechanism which helps in facilitating the work more smoothly.
The cloud based POS renders all the execution for online ordering and it is the best choice to make an investment for such start-ups.
Once the order gets placed, the POS also helps the kitchen experts to know their available resources and the things which they need to buy from the market. - Equipments
There are a number of major investments in the cloud kitchen such as equipping the right machineries – Dishwasher, kettles and the utensils to prepare the food in bulk quantities is the basic requirement.
A right vendor is needed to get all such things and as per the requirements they might create the way you want the utensil to be. That’s the perfect solution.
Fuel is the main ingredient which is required by the kitchen to prepare its food. Though there are many appliances which use electricity but still fuel and electricity must be deployed and all the safety measures must be deployed. - Staff
As the orders in the cloud kitchen get placed continuously, experienced staff is needed to execute the orders and depending upon the size of orders and business the staff must be deployed.
Good and friendly relationships with employees are likely to curb the employee’s retention rate and it will enhance the growth of the business. - Packaging
As the orders are received online and the customers only source to know your company is through the website and the apps.
That’s when packaging comes to the picture. Polythenes and plates which have your brand logo or print of your choice to reach the wider audience and the less techno-savvy people.
Such customized bags and plates can make a wider appeal to the individuals who are still wondering whether they should place an order to your restaurant or not.
Eco-friendly ways of packing must be used which can spread awareness as well as popularizes your brand. - Marketing
Marketing in every industry is necessary and it becomes more important for the cloud kitchens as they don’t have visibility and no physical outlets.
Online and offline marketing both must be channelized by the cloud kitchen to fetch more customers and entertain the existing customers.
The Last Sentence
All the discussed features are of high importance when it comes to enhancing the growth and popularity of the cloud kitchen.
The business owner must make necessary arrangements before starting the cloud kitchen and these features must be integrated in the kitchen for better functioning and evading all the legal problems when it comes to licenses and arrangements.
Author’s Bio
James Vargas is an experienced business expert, startup business consultant, assistance in trademark registration, Food Delivery App Development and marketing head at Get Everything Delivered. With the 1.5-decade corporate experience, he is now sharing his guidance to start-ups to grow with corporate team building activities and project delivery solutions.