The Ghost Kitchen
A restaurant with no dining room, no signage, and no walk-in traffic: just a kitchen that exists to fill delivery orders. The pitch is low rent and low build-out. The catch is that the apps that bring you orders also take a quarter to a third of every one, and you live or die by a screen you don’t control.
Read the launch plan: every step from deciding to opening, free →The Snapshot
Is this worth your attention?
Cited sources Typical bands for this kind of business, compiled from the public sources listed under Sources and method; they are a synthesis, not figures copied from any one source. Estimates, not forecasts; a specific business varies with its location, lease, equipment and owner. Last reviewed 2026-07-07. smbnest is a self-assessment tool, not individualized advice.
A fit if you…
- Want into food with the least possible build-out and rent
- Are comfortable running a kitchen with no front of house
- Will treat the delivery apps and your menu like a marketing channel
- Like the idea of testing several virtual brands from one kitchen
Probably not if you…
- Want the brand, room, and walk-in energy of a real restaurant
- Can’t stomach handing 25-30% of each order to an app
- Expect loyalty you control rather than rented from a platform
- Need fat margins; this model is structurally thin
Step Inside the Layout
A live look at one tool inside
This is the actual 3D floor from the full model. Drag to explore it. Inside, you configure the space yourself and watch the economics move with every choice.
Sources and method10 public sources, with the year and a link where the source gives one. The benchmark bands are smbnest's synthesis of these sources, not figures copied from them.
Sources & Method
Figures are compiled from the public sources below; the bands are a synthesis of them, not copies
How these numbers were built: commission tiers and sign-up fees come from coverage of DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub fee schedules (MarketMan, Rezku); food, labor, margin, and order-volume benchmarks from Toast’s ghost-kitchen economics; kitchen rent, deposits, permits, and technology costs from GoFoodservice’s ghost-kitchen startup guide; resale multiples from BizBuySell’s 2021-2025 restaurant benchmarks; survival rates from BLS Business Employment Dynamics; SBA loan charge-off rates from an analysis of SBA 7(a) loans originated in 2010-2019; and the cost to open from the opening kit, priced item by item from equipment dealers. No public source reports owner earnings (SDE) for delivery-only kitchens, so the margin band rests on Toast’s published profit range and should be read as conservative. These are starting assumptions; the moment you enter a real facility’s rent, your order counts, and your commission tier, your numbers should replace ours. Figures are current as of 2025-2026.
This file had no prior sources map. Commission and food cost figures are corroborated by Toast (toasttab.com) and a 2026 Rezku industry blog post on DoorDash/Uber Eats/Grubhub fee structures; both are third-party operator-facing publishers rather than primary platform disclosures, so treat exact percentages as directional industry ranges.
This is just the surface
The full model is the complete, interactive deep-dive, and every business here is built to the same standard: a live economics simulator you tune to your own numbers, an interactive 3D walkthrough, a location scorecard, an owner-fit assessment, a buy-versus-build comparison, and the full breakdown of how it makes money and what quietly kills margin.
then $29 a month
Time to choose and start, then month to month.
$99 today for your first 3 months, then $29 a month until you cancel.
about $17 a month
The best price: a year to decide, open and run it.
$199 today, then $199 each year until you cancel.
Renews until you cancel. Cancel any time from your account; you keep access to the end of the period you paid for, and your saved plans stay in your account. What membership opens
smbnest is a self-assessment tool. It does not give individualized financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Figures are estimates and benchmarks, not forecasts. Speak with a qualified financial adviser and a licensed attorney before you start, buy, finance or sign anything.