Delivering a New Take on Takeout with Owner of Ghost Truck Kitchen
In this article, you will take in Ghost Truck Kitchen’s story about revolutionizing takeout.
At Your Service
Andrew Martino had a hunger to deliver an ultimate food experience and to avoid the common problem of wasted restaurant real estate. Today, that is exactly what his business, Ghost Truck Kitchen does!
His innovative approach allowed him to provide his local community with diverse, high-quality dishes out of a single kitchen.
Whether you’re looking for a creative menu, a streamlined ordering process, or the recipe for an entrepreneurial success story, Ghost Truck Kitchen is at your service!
New Food Truck Experience, Minus the Truck
Waitttttt. There is no actual truck?
That’s right. We know, it’s hard to digest at first.
Andrew Martino calls his kitchen Ghost Truck because like ghosts, his trucks do not physically exist.
Know what else doesn’t exist?
Waiters, a dining room, or tables at his small brick and mortar place in New Jersey.
You no longer must be sitting down, waiting in a restaurant to get stand-up locally sourced fresh food.
You also don’t have to be limited by that same ol’ restaurant menu with the same ol’ choices.
Ordering from Ghost Truck Kitchen is like being in front of a bunch of food trucks! Variety, grab- n- go options, changing menus, oh my!
*chef’s kiss*
With a few clicks of a button on your phone, you can be enjoying a bowly moly, meat candy combo, empanada, or Bahn YU at your own kitchen table.
With a section on the digitized menu called Vegan Out, Ghost Truck Kitchen doesn’t ghost the needs of all the different people it serves.
And that is just plain tasteful!
Ghost Truck Kitchen’s menu also has a section called, “All we do is wing, wing, wing,” but to be as successful as Andrew Martino is today, he did not wing it!
If you have an appetite to learn more about his secret sauce to success (and those wings), then continue below to consume bite-sized insights from our interview with him.
Here’s What’s Cooking with Andrew Martino
Be Helpful:
How did you convince yourself to be an innovator?
Andrew Martino:
Having a background as a hospitality consultant, I've helped owners and operators open new concepts many times before. The biggest thing that I always tell them is they need to give things time and they need to have conviction in what they’re doing.
If something doesn't work for 90 days, and you're ready to switch, then how much did you really believe in what you were doing in the first place?
“It takes time for your audience to understand what you're doing, especially for me. Ghost Truck Kitchen is a unique concept. It can be a confusing name- is it a food truck, is it not? Is it a ghost kitchen, is it not? I’ve made mistakes in the past for sure on the branding aspect, but it’s just really about having conviction in what I’m doing.”
I believed that the world was going to shift, I didn't know the pandemic was going to come, but I saw the changing of the guard. It costs more to live where you live. Your entertainment costs more than it did before. You’re spending more time than ever at home. These shifts were already happening before the pandemic, though the pandemic obviously accelerated that.
The last thing I'll say about what convinced me to be an innovator is that I had a bit of luck and support in my world.
My wife had a steady stable job that I knew I could rely on when things were challenging for me, and they did get challenging! It was really hard to get off the ground. It was really hard for the first couple of years. If she didn't have a stable, steady job that could help us, then I probably wouldn't have done something so “risky.”
So, the timing must be right. The support must be right. And then, it’s always a leap of faith, right?
You're never going to be positive that what you're going to do is going to work. You must believe and believe enough that if it doesn’t work, you can pivot and figure something else out after you gave it that honest try.
Be Helpful:
What is the importance of systems and operations as an entrepreneur?
Andrew Martino:
If you meet seasoned operators, especially people who have successful chains and corporations, there's a reason that they've made it that far. It's generally because of the systems and the processes that they have in place; basically, the formulas of how to make a restaurant run profitably.
I think the smaller you are, and if you're a chef-owner, food can drive your business 100%, especially if you're doing something outstanding.
But, as you grow, and if you're not the person that's in the kitchen every day because you want to work on the business, what happens? Generally, the food falls off. The restaurant isn't what it was before.
I think that is what we see a lot. Places open, they're great for a year or two, and then they need to grow or expand, or the chef doesn't want to work 90 hours a week anymore, and things start to decline and degrade.
“Don't get me wrong. Our food is FIRE and everything tastes great, and it's awesome. We cook from scratch and we do stuff in takeout that no one else is doing.”
But again, we have a system in place to make sure that it's consistent. We have a system in place to make sure it comes out the same way every time. We have a system in place to make sure that the food stays hot when it gets to you. We have a process so that the food cost stays where it needs to be so we can be profitable.
It’s extremely important for all those things to be firing correctly in order to make a restaurant work.
Be Helpful:
What do you see as the future of the restaurant business? What does Ghost Truck Kitchen look like in 10 years?
Andrew Martino:
Well, I'll give you what I hope the future is versus what I think the future is because, unfortunately, they're not the same thing.
I think that these large, multinational conglomerate companies are not going anywhere. I think they're going to continue to invest in delivery and takeout, and I think they'll continue to get better at it. I think convenience will continue to rise and prices will continue to stay steady or fall as they get better and better at it.
“I hope that more independent restaurants get into technology and realize that they can start their own virtual concepts out of their own kitchens using their own innovation and their own food ideas.”
I hope that restaurants take their digital orders more seriously than they are right now because in the future everything will be a digital order.
For us at Ghost Truck, the first thing we're going to do 10 years from now is ghost our name, or maybe we’ll do that 10 months from now!
I think, for us, the idea is to get more things to you in one order.
The way I see that is, ‘Yes, we definitely want to make your on-demand delivery dinner for you tonight and have you enjoy it. It's a great meal! But, also, do you need any groceries to make breakfast tomorrow morning? Also, is there some cool convenience good or local proprietor of some CPG product that you need or want to sample?’
I think the next step in our evolution is getting more things to you in one delivery, one car, and one delivery fee, so that you feel better about your purchase because you got three days’ worth of stuff instead of one night. That also is good for us, our bag gets bigger too. Instead of you spending $50, maybe you spent $100 because you got X, Y and Z.
Lastly, to just continue on with food innovation. The way that we were set up was to be adaptable.
“Whether some new food trend comes along four years from now or four months from now, we can lean into that. We always want to be on the cutting edge of what we're doing culinary wise and be a big part of multiple communities.”
We're a neighborhood takeout business and neighborhood takeout businesses have loyal customers. We're part of their stable environment, they order from us once a week or once a month or whatever it is. That's the type of business we want. We want to be repeatable, and sustainable and be a part of the communities that we operate in.
Final Food For Thought
Just like a ghost is see-through, Andrew Martino of Ghost Truck Kitchen was very clear about what it takes to run a restaurant. His full interview offered so much food for thought for anyone interested in getting their own business cooking!
Make sure to head over to the Be Helpful Podcast or YouTube Channel to eat it all up!
In the meantime, if you have said BOO to bad delivery services in the past, try the new fast-food delivery of the future with food so good, it’s scary!
Don’t be haunted by the regret of never ordering from Ghost Truck Kitchen!
What was your biggest “takeaway” about this type of takeaway service?
Let us know below!
Are you an entrepreneur, start-up, or business owner who is an expert on a topic like this too? Tell us your story and get your business featured here. Follow this link to apply.