Ghost Kitchens in the UK: The Operator’s Real Guide

Last updated: 11 April 2026

A ghost kitchen — sometimes called a cloud kitchen or virtual restaurant — sounds like the perfect side hustle for a pub operator with unused kitchen space. But most pub landlords don’t have unused kitchen space. They have kitchens running at full capacity during service hours and sitting empty between midday and evening. That gap between service windows is where the ghost kitchen pitch starts to make sense, and also where most operators run into problems they didn’t expect. I’ve evaluated this model carefully for Teal Farm Pub in Washington, Tyne & Wear, and the reality is far different from the marketing material. This guide covers what ghost kitchens actually are, how they work in a UK context, what they cost, and whether running one alongside a traditional wet-led or food-led pub operation genuinely makes financial sense.

What Is a Ghost Kitchen?

A ghost kitchen is a commercial kitchen space used exclusively for preparing food sold through delivery platforms, with no walk-in customer service or dine-in area. That’s the defining feature. There’s no front-of-house counter, no tables, no bar — just a working kitchen that receives orders electronically from Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber Eats, or similar, prepares them, and hands them to delivery drivers.

The term “ghost” refers to the invisible nature of the operation to the end customer. The customer orders from an app and receives food, but they never see a physical location because there isn’t one — at least not one designed for customer foot traffic. The kitchen is the entire business.

In the UK pub context, this typically means one of two setups:

• Shared ghost kitchen spaces: Commercial kitchens rented hourly or by shift to multiple food operators. You book kitchen time, prep and cook, then leave. This is common in urban areas and industrial estates.
• Pub-based ghost kitchen: A pub operator uses their existing kitchen during off-peak hours to create a separate delivery-only brand. You’re not sharing space; you’re filling dead time.

The second option is what actually attracts pub landlords. It requires no additional rent, uses infrastructure already in place, and can theoretically generate revenue during hours when the kitchen sits idle.

How Ghost Kitchens Work in the UK

The operational flow is straightforward on paper, but the execution is where complexity emerges.

A customer opens Deliveroo or Just Eat and sees your ghost kitchen’s brand — which must be registered as a separate business entity on those platforms, not under your pub’s name. They see your menu, place an order, and pay through the app. The platform sends you the order electronically (either directly to your pub IT solutions guide or via a printer or tablet you’ve been given). Your kitchen team prepares it. A delivery driver (employed by the platform, not you) collects the food and delivers it to the customer’s address.

You handle the food cost, preparation labour, and packaging. The delivery platform takes a cut — typically 25–30% on Deliveroo, sometimes higher on smaller platforms. You receive payment via bank transfer, usually weekly or fortnightly.

That sounds clean. The reality is messier. You’re now managing:

• A separate brand identity and business registration (necessary for platform compliance)
• A separate menu, separate pricing strategy, and separate food costing
• Customer service complaints through a platform you don’t control — negative reviews directly impact your ghost kitchen’s visibility and ranking
• Integration with your existing EPOS system (if you have one) or manual order tracking
• Separate stock records and food waste tracking for compliance
• Staff scheduling around two overlapping kitchen operations during peak hours

The delivery platforms don’t care about your pub’s operating hours or constraints. If you’re listed as open from 17:00 to 23:00, you must be ready to prepare orders at 17:00. If orders spike at 21:30 and you’re in the middle of your pub’s Friday night service, you’re now competing for kitchen space and staff attention with your core business.

Why Pub Operators Consider Ghost Kitchens

The appeal is clear: unused kitchen capacity generating additional revenue. A pub kitchen that closes at 22:00 sits empty from 22:00 to 11:00 the next morning (or whenever lunch service starts). That’s 13 hours of paid rent and equipment generating zero income. A ghost kitchen, the pitch goes, fills that gap.

The secondary appeal is lower risk than traditional food-service expansion. You’re not opening a restaurant. You’re not hiring additional permanent staff. You’re using existing space and adding work to existing staff during quiet periods.

The third appeal is that delivery platforms bring their own customer base. You don’t need to market or drive traffic yourself. The platform does that. You just need to maintain a good rating and appear high in search results on the app.

Sounds reasonable. But none of these appeals hold up under realistic scrutiny for most UK pub operators, particularly wet-led pubs where the pub’s primary income comes from draught sales, not food.

The Real Costs: Space, Licensing, and Staffing

If you’re using your pub’s kitchen, you don’t pay additional rent. That’s one cost saved compared to renting dedicated ghost kitchen space. But every other cost is real.

Licensing and Compliance

Your pub already has a premises licence and food hygiene registration. A ghost kitchen operating from the same kitchen does not automatically fall under that licence. Food Standards Agency guidance requires separate food business registration if you’re operating under a different trading name, even from the same physical location.

This is not a paperwork-only exercise. Environmental Health may inspect the ghost kitchen operation separately. If they find stock records that show you’re selling food under Brand A (your pub) and Brand B (your ghost kitchen) from the same kitchen without clear separation, you’re vulnerable to enforcement action. You need separate records, separate labelling, and separate stock tracking — or you need to prove to EH that your EPOS system or stock management system maintains a clear audit trail between the two operations.

Many pub operators use manual stock counts. If you’re ghost kitchening from your pub kitchen and you do a Friday stock count by hand, separating usage between the pub and the ghost kitchen is nearly impossible. You’d need to track every ingredient by operation as it’s used — which no kitchen staff member will do consistently under service pressure.

Staffing Costs

This is where the maths breaks down for most operators. You need someone to manage the ghost kitchen operation — even if it’s just order intake and quality checking. During quiet pub hours (say, 14:00 to 17:00), you might have a chef and one prep person in the kitchen. A ghost kitchen order comes in at 14:30. That prep person now has to drop what they’re doing to start on a delivery order that will go out via Deliveroo at 14:45.

You can’t hire a dedicated ghost kitchen chef. The economics don’t work. A chef costs £28,000–£35,000 annually, even part-time. A ghost kitchen operating 6 hours a day, 6 days a week needs to generate £450+ per week just to cover that cost before food, tax, and platform fees.

More realistically, ghost kitchen work becomes extra tasks for existing kitchen staff, which means they’re doing two jobs. That drains morale and slows service. I’ve seen this directly at Teal Farm Pub: during Saturday night service, when the kitchen is already at full capacity with pub food orders, adding external delivery orders creates conflict between the two operations. The priority becomes unclear. Is a pub customer’s 8-minute rule for a starter order more important than a delivery order sitting in a Deliveroo bag for 12 minutes? Most staff will prioritise the diner they can see, which means delivery order quality suffers, ratings drop, and the ghost kitchen becomes invisible on the platform.

Equipment and Packaging

You don’t need new kitchen equipment — you’re using your existing setup. But you do need delivery-suitable packaging, and it’s not cheap. Branded takeout boxes, insulated bags (if you want to maintain temperature during transit), and labels add £0.60–£1.20 per order. On a £12 delivery order with 25–30% platform fees already taken, that’s a material cost.

Additionally, delivery packaging must meet food safety standards. If you’re currently plating food for dine-in customers, switching to delivery packaging requires compliance checking. Some items that work in a warm plate won’t travel well in a box.

Revenue Model and Profitability

Let’s build a realistic example using a pub-based ghost kitchen operation.

Assumptions:

• Your ghost kitchen is open 17:00–23:00, Monday to Sunday (42 hours per week)
• Average order value: £18 (realistic for UK delivery food)
• Platform commission: 28% (Deliveroo typical rate)
• Food cost: 32% of order value (standard for delivery food)
• You receive: £18 × 0.72 = £12.96 per order
• Food cost: £18 × 0.32 = £5.76
• Gross profit per order: £12.96 − £5.76 = £7.20

You need 60 orders per week to break even on a part-time kitchen manager at £8 per hour (£480 per week). That’s roughly 10 orders per day across a 6-day week. Achievable? Possibly — but only if your ghost kitchen brand gains visibility on the platform quickly.

But here’s the reality most operators miss: most ghost kitchens take 3–6 months to build a customer base and reach consistent order volume. During that ramp-up period, you’re generating 3–5 orders per day while still paying staffing costs. You’re losing money.

Additionally, if you’re running the ghost kitchen using your existing kitchen staff with no extra payroll, there’s no “break-even point.” There’s only: Are your staff managing both operations without degrading service quality? If the answer is no, you’re losing money on the pub side because kitchen speed drops and customer satisfaction falls.

Use the pub profit margin calculator to see how much a 5% drop in food service speed or a 2% increase in food waste costs you on the pub side. Then compare that loss against the ghost kitchen revenue and decide if the trade-off is worth it.

The Operational Reality for Pub Landlords

After evaluating ghost kitchens for Teal Farm Pub, my conclusion is that the operational complexity outweighs the revenue upside for most traditional pub operators — particularly wet-led pubs.

Why Wet-Led Pubs Struggle With Ghost Kitchens

A wet-led pub makes its money from draught sales. Food is secondary — it’s there to extend dwell time and support drinks sales. A ghost kitchen operation requires food to be the primary product. It requires menu consistency, precise timing, quality control, and customer service excellence — all things that matter enormously on delivery platforms where one bad review tanks your visibility.

Wet-led pub staff are trained to prioritise bar service and draught quality. Their expertise is in pint-pulling, not in ensuring a pad Thai arrives at the right temperature in a takeout box. The two operations pull in different directions.

Platform Dependency and Algorithm Risk

Your revenue depends entirely on your ranking within the Deliveroo or Just Eat app. That ranking is driven by order volume, customer ratings, and estimated delivery time. None of these are fully in your control. If delivery drivers in your area are stretched thin and average delivery time rises to 45 minutes, your ghost kitchen gets buried in the app regardless of how good your food is.

If you receive one bad review — maybe because packaging failed and food arrived cold — your ranking drops. You receive fewer orders. Your volume drops. Your ranking drops further. This is a downward spiral that takes weeks or months to recover from.

The platforms don’t care. They’re not invested in your success. Your ghost kitchen is a line item on their platform generating 28% commission. If you disappear, another ghost kitchen will replace you within a week.

Integration With Your Existing EPOS and Stock Management

Most pub EPOS systems are not designed to track two separate brands or operations. If you’re using an older till system, you’ll need to manage ghost kitchen orders manually — which means separate paper tickets, separate stock sheets, or both. This creates audit trail problems for food safety and makes it nearly impossible to track true food costs.

If you invest in a modern pub management software system that can handle multiple operations, you’re paying additional licensing costs. Most SaaS hospitality platforms charge per-outlet or per-brand, not per-location. If your ghost kitchen is registered as a separate business entity (which it must be for compliance), you’re paying twice for the same kitchen space.

Customer Service on Platforms You Don’t Control

When a pub customer complains about food, they come to the bar and speak to you directly. You have the opportunity to fix it immediately, explain what happened, and rebuild trust. When a ghost kitchen customer complains, they post a 2-star review on Deliveroo with a comment like “Cold food, never ordering again.” You can respond, but the damage is already done. That review stays visible for months. Other potential customers see it before they see your other 50 five-star reviews.

You also can’t control how your food is handled between the kitchen and the customer. A driver might leave the food in a hot car for 15 minutes. The customer never knows that’s not your fault — they rate you poorly and assume it’s a kitchen issue.

The Real Opportunity Cost

Every hour your kitchen staff spend managing ghost kitchen orders is an hour they’re not improving your core pub operation. That time could go toward menu development, staff training through pub onboarding training programs, or improving your food cost through better supplier relationships.

It could go toward improving your pub staffing cost calculator data so you understand exactly which shifts are profitable and which are losing money. It could go toward implementing a pub drink pricing calculator that ensures your draught margins are optimised.

Ghost kitchens only make sense if you genuinely have underutilised kitchen capacity and staff with surplus time. For most pub operators, neither of those conditions exists. The kitchen that sits empty from 22:00 to 11:00 could be deep-cleaned, maintained, or used for prep work. The staff member who “could help with ghost kitchen orders” already has a full job.

When Ghost Kitchens Actually Work

There are exceptions. Ghost kitchens work well for:

• High-volume food pubs with underutilised kitchen capacity during specific hours: If you’re a food-led pub running brunch service 09:00–12:00 and lunch service 12:00–14:30, your kitchen is quiet from 14:30–16:00. A ghost kitchen operating in that window might make sense — though you’d need a dedicated person managing it, which costs money.
• Operators with a second business idea they want to test: If you want to develop a specific food concept (say, Korean street food or Indian tiffin), a ghost kitchen lets you test the market before opening a separate restaurant. Use your pub kitchen as the launch pad, build a customer base, then move to dedicated space once you’re generating £2,000+ per week in orders.
• Multi-unit operators with shared kitchen infrastructure: If you run three pubs and a central commissary kitchen, a ghost kitchen operating from the commissary makes sense. You have economies of scale, dedicated staff, and the infrastructure to support it.

For a single wet-led pub, the risk-to-reward ratio doesn’t justify it.

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