When Travis Kalanick confirmed up on the Meals on Demand convention this previous Could, expertise and restaurant trade insiders may hardly consider it.
In any case, the Uber cofounder had gained an nearly Howard Hughes-like status for secrecy over the previous decade, saying nary a phrase publicly through the years whereas journalists and Web sleuths looked for digital breadcrumbs about what precisely he was as much as with CloudKitchens, a enterprise beneath which he had quietly constructed the largest community of darkish kitchen/ghost kitchen amenities within the nation.
However not like the eccentric aerospace and movie magnate who spent his days toggling between locking himself away in screening rooms and crashing planes, Kalanick made clear on stage in Las Vegas final month that he’s been busy constructing a brand new enterprise empire targeted on reimagining the world of eating places and meals supply.
“Are you able to do to the kitchen what Uber did to the automotive?” he requested. From there, Kalanick painted a imaginative and prescient of how the businesses he’d assembled beneath his Metropolis Storage Techniques holding firm would do issues otherwise. He prompt the sum whole of his collected corporations – similar to shared/darkish kitchens (CloudKitchens), Level of Sale software program (Otter), and restaurant automation (Lab37) – may energy a extra environment friendly means of doing enterprise than the disjointed, costly, and fee-ridden state the restaurant and meals supply enterprise had advanced into over the previous decade.
It was throughout his speak that Kalanick talked up the concept of an ‘Intenet Meals Court docket,’ the place clients may get a hyper-personalized expertise and order any sort of meals inside quarter-hour. To comprehend that imaginative and prescient, Kalanick stated meals manufacturing and logistics would have to be automated, and his firm was constructing the mandatory infrastructure beneath Metropolis Storage Techniques to ship that.
“We paint the place this all goes, however there’s a highway to get there and we name it infrastructure for higher meals,” he continued. “That’s the mission of my firm.”
Kalanick’s refererence to the idea of an Web or digital meals courtroom was not the primary sign from him or his firm concerning the idea. In truth, in 2020, the corporate launched what it described as an Web meals courtroom within the LA market, the place it will combination all of the meals operators within the Koreatown facility and supply multi-tenant ordering. They even had a web site URL, Internetfoodcourt.co. Nonetheless, as of April 2020, the positioning had gone useless, and CloudKitchens had scrubbed its Web presence of the time period.
However then, in March of this 12 months, the corporate began speaking digital meals courts once more. That month, it posted a narrative on its weblog concerning the launch of a Picnic-branded digital meals courtroom platform in Chicago. The placement, which was previously known as Avondale Meals Pickup earlier than it was renamed Picnic, featured what the publish described as a brand new digital platform that may allow a buyer to order meals on a brand new web site (picnicfood.com) or in individual by way of a kiosk or a human employee after which they’d be capable of decide up the meals by way of a pick-up locker.
The pickup kiosk may be seen beneath:
The web site for this Picnic exhibits you may ask for supply or pickup, and at the moment the one location for pickup is the Chicago deal with in Avondale, and a Google search appears to point this was the primary and solely time Kalanick’s firm had used the Picnic branding and the idea of a digital meals corridor since 2020.
After which earlier this week, what seems to be one other model of the identical Picnic firm (identical brand, completely different web site) confirmed up on Linkedin and talked up a brand new platform idea within the Los Angeles market. The pitch? A ‘digital meals corridor’ and fee-free multi-brand supply of meals to completely different locations of enterprise or residential multi-family models. The idea, which is defined within the video beneath, is actually bulk orders to numerous workplace buildings, colleges, or wherever hungry folks convene collectively every day.
In keeping with the explainer video and the web site, a Picnic “activation” begins with a location supervisor or worker/resident making use of to be a Picnic supply location. As soon as accepted, Picnic will put what it describes as a Picnic “shelf” on the location the place the completely different particular person meals are positioned throughout a supply.
This new Picnic doesn’t state anyplace on its web site or on Linkedin that it’s part of Metropolis Storage Techniques’ community. The web site‘s FAQ describes the corporate as a product of coworkers within the California market “who realized that it’s almost inconceivable to seek out constant lunch choices which have selection,” and when The Spoon reached somebody by way of a quantity discovered on the corporate’s Linkedin web page, the individual instructed us the corporate was not related to CloudKitchens or Metropolis Storage Techniques.
However we’re assured it’s for a few apparent causes: Not solely does it use the identical brand because the CloudKitchens Picnic providing in Chicago, however the location’s deal with at 777 S Figueroa in Los Angeles is listed in a number of places as being the identical deal with as Metropolis Storage Techniques.
Which, in fact, raises all types of questions. For instance, is that this model of Picnic – a platform for bulk-ordered supply of meals to locations of labor and multi-family dwelling – going to be the subsequent large concept from Kalanick’s firm? And does this imply the corporate is constructing out its personal supply community? And can Kalanick & Co roll out the digital meals courtroom and automatic pick-up kiosks (similar to that in Picnic Chicago) to its different ghost kitchen places throughout the nation?
A brand new supply community would definitely be an attention-grabbing transfer for a founder who is basically accountable for not solely reshaping customized transportation with Uber and constructing the infrastructure for one of many largest third celebration meal supply corporations in UberEats.
Lastly, it additionally must be requested: Why Picnic? There are already a pair different Picnics within the meals tech house, together with Picnic in Seattle which makes pizza robots, and the grocery tech startup named Picnic out of The Netherlands. It looks like a curious transfer, particularly for the reason that US Trademark workplace awarded a trademark to the Seattle-based Picnic (their company identify is Picnic Works) to make use of the time period Picnic.
If in case you have any insights or leads on what else Metropolis Storage Techniques is planning on doing with its Picnic platform (both the centralized pickup Web meals corridor idea or the bulk-delivery idea), drop us a line.
