About a year ago, I first ran across the term "ghost kitchen". They're basically a restaurant without a waitstaff or dining space. Their niche is selling online food orders for delivery (think Grubhub, UberEats, DoorDash) or customer pickup. Their popularity steamrolled during COVID and seems to be a permanent part of the restaurant discussion going forward.
There's a ghost kitchen running out of the Avon, CT Bertucci's (MrBeast Burger) and tonight I ordered takeout from Paul & Vinnie's -a ghost kitchen running out of the back of Carbone's Kitchen in Bloomfield.
They sell pizza, grinders, salads, and a few desserts. I called in an order for a large ($14) "Francesca's Eggplant Grinder", advertised as "my Sicilian grandmother's eggplant, marinara, ricotta, Mootz, romano, and roasted red peppers". It was stellar !! Super tender and thin eggplant cutlets piled high on pillowy bread, plus all that cheese and sauce and goodness.
We also went for a large ($23) Smop Pizza (Sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers, Mootz, tomato sauce). The pizza was equally excellent- thin New Haven style crust, absolutely loaded with vegetables and very tasty sausage crumbles.
Here's how the process worked -I called in my order and they took my credit card over the phone. I drove over, called them from the parking lot and out came the food. Simple as that.
Bottom line is this, for $40 we bought a big and excellent eggplant grinder and a big and excellent pizza. We split half the grinder and had a slice apiece tonight. There are easily two more dinners for two in the fridge right now. So, six servings of delicious food for $40 works out to under $7 a meal.
Good value plus good food equals a combination we are likely to repeat very soon. read more