Definition
Commissary kitchen
A commissary kitchen is a licensed, often shared commercial kitchen used for prep, production, catering, or delivery brands, rather than for serving guests on site.
A commissary (or central kitchen) is a licensed commercial space used for food production away from the point of sale. It can be a shared facility that a caterer, food truck, or delivery brand rents by the hour, or a single operator's own central kitchen that preps for several locations. There are no diners in it; the output is prepped components, packaged meals, or delivery and pickup orders.
The point is to separate production from expensive real estate. A Ghost kitchen or a Virtual brand can cook from a cheap commissary instead of a storefront paying prime rent, a multi-unit operator can centralize prep to cut duplicated labor and hold portioning consistent across sites, and a food truck gets the licensed space health codes require. With off-premises now ~75% of restaurant traffic, production-only space that feeds delivery and pickup is a growing model.
Centralizing production raises the stakes on Mise en place and Demand forecasting: prep too much and it spoils before it reaches a location, too little and outlets run out mid-service. It also concentrates food-cost control in one place, which is exactly where AI ordering and waste tracking pay off. See inventory and food cost and demand forecasting.
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