A former TitleMax office is being reborn as a ghost kitchen on West Broad Street. (Mike Platania photo)
Apparently not spooked by increasing competition, another new entrant into the Richmond ghost kitchen market is popping up along a main thoroughfare in the city.
ChefSuite, which provides space for restaurateurs to run delivery-only restaurants, is preparing to open at 4711 W. Broad St., near the Staples Mill Pulse bus stop.
The former TitleMax building will be outfitted with 16 rentable commercial kitchens, each about 200 square feet and outfitted with the necessary cookware to run a restaurant. National apps like UberEats and DoorDash will handle delivering the food from ChefSuite to customers.
Co-owners Jay Modi and Jarnail Tucker confirmed their plans for ChefSuite, which they hope to have operational in spring 2022. They bought the half-acre parcel in late June for $1.2 million.
Tucker and Modi are longtime friends, currently residing in New Jersey and Los Angeles, respectively. They said they decided to bring ChefSuite to Richmond for a few reasons.
“We see the growth potential in Richmond with the population growth, a lot of businesses moving there and businesses expanding there like CoStar,” Tucker said. “Richmond’s just a really solid market for a number of different reasons.”
The duo estimate that the Richmond region has seen about 150 restaurants close due to the pandemic. Modi said he thinks ChefSuite can be a landing spot for restaurateurs who aren’t willing or able to lease a full restaurant space but aren’t ready to leave the industry.
“It’s not like these folks who owned (restaurants) lost their passion or don’t want to be in the business anymore,” Modi said.
“It was just simply unfortunate the pandemic made the economics of owning a restaurant not work anymore. That’s why we chose Richmond. There are all these people who are so passionate about cooking and want to be in the restaurant business, and we want to provide a more cost-efficient way of doing that.”
Modi said leases for kitchens at ChefSuite will range from about six months to a year upon opening.
“The goal is to really grow their business with us. I think most of the tenants that would start with us would eventually want to have their own brick-and-mortar spot,” Modi said.
ChefSuite is the second ghost kitchen in the works for West Broad Street. In June, Cloud Kitchens, a ghost kitchen startup led by a former Uber CEO, purchased 2812 W. Broad St. in Scott’s Addition.
Local operators have also gotten in on the ghost kitchen craze. Last year Garden Party, whose offerings include Fat Kid Sandwiches, launched in Manchester.
A former TitleMax office is being reborn as a ghost kitchen on West Broad Street. (Mike Platania photo)
Apparently not spooked by increasing competition, another new entrant into the Richmond ghost kitchen market is popping up along a main thoroughfare in the city.
ChefSuite, which provides space for restaurateurs to run delivery-only restaurants, is preparing to open at 4711 W. Broad St., near the Staples Mill Pulse bus stop.
The former TitleMax building will be outfitted with 16 rentable commercial kitchens, each about 200 square feet and outfitted with the necessary cookware to run a restaurant. National apps like UberEats and DoorDash will handle delivering the food from ChefSuite to customers.
Co-owners Jay Modi and Jarnail Tucker confirmed their plans for ChefSuite, which they hope to have operational in spring 2022. They bought the half-acre parcel in late June for $1.2 million.
Tucker and Modi are longtime friends, currently residing in New Jersey and Los Angeles, respectively. They said they decided to bring ChefSuite to Richmond for a few reasons.
“We see the growth potential in Richmond with the population growth, a lot of businesses moving there and businesses expanding there like CoStar,” Tucker said. “Richmond’s just a really solid market for a number of different reasons.”
The duo estimate that the Richmond region has seen about 150 restaurants close due to the pandemic. Modi said he thinks ChefSuite can be a landing spot for restaurateurs who aren’t willing or able to lease a full restaurant space but aren’t ready to leave the industry.
“It’s not like these folks who owned (restaurants) lost their passion or don’t want to be in the business anymore,” Modi said.
“It was just simply unfortunate the pandemic made the economics of owning a restaurant not work anymore. That’s why we chose Richmond. There are all these people who are so passionate about cooking and want to be in the restaurant business, and we want to provide a more cost-efficient way of doing that.”
Modi said leases for kitchens at ChefSuite will range from about six months to a year upon opening.
“The goal is to really grow their business with us. I think most of the tenants that would start with us would eventually want to have their own brick-and-mortar spot,” Modi said.
ChefSuite is the second ghost kitchen in the works for West Broad Street. In June, Cloud Kitchens, a ghost kitchen startup led by a former Uber CEO, purchased 2812 W. Broad St. in Scott’s Addition.
Local operators have also gotten in on the ghost kitchen craze. Last year Garden Party, whose offerings include Fat Kid Sandwiches, launched in Manchester.
This makes much more sense to me than the one in Scott’s addition, better access to West Broad and Penn’s landing, and way easier in and out than the other one.