Tony Caruso, one of three brothers who run Panini's Italian Cucina locations in Edmonton and Sherwood Park, said the ghost kitchens he's added to several of his dine-in restaurants offer a chance to increase revenue with limited risk.
"Say (a ghost kitchen) was to go poorly, everyone hated it — I just delete the Uber account, and it's gone," Caruso told Taproot. "Other than my pride being injured, (or) someone saying that 'These guys are dumb,' it's a pretty safe bet."
Ghost kitchens are pickup-and-delivery food concepts that run out of commercial kitchens without dine-in areas, or in the kitchens of existing restaurants that otherwise serve a separate menu to diners. The business concept has created both success and controversy, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have noted that ghost kitchens often have American parent companies and can divert customers from locally-owned restaurants.
For Caruso, the model offers an additional way to bring in revenue to keep his staff employed at his dine-in locations.
"I have like, 15, 20, employees at any given moment, and the payroll gets big sometimes. (Ghost kitchens) help offset that," he said. "From 2pm to 5pm, there's not much to do, and so you give your staff extra tasks … It's another way to keep everyone busy, and keep everybody working."
In November, Caruso opened the Michelangelo's New York Pizza ghost kitchen at Panini's newest location, at 14981 Stony Plain Road NW, which itself opened to dine-in guests roughly seven months earlier. Caruso most recently opened the grandma-style ghost kitchen, Wise Guys Square Pies, in February at Panini's Sherwood Park location, which itself opened to dine-in guests in 2022.
He also opened Rob's Famous Fried Chicken (named for his brother) last year in the same building as the Panini's restaurant on Jasper Avenue, which his parents opened in 2016.
Rob's is not a ghost kitchen as you can walk in and order food at the counter. The brothers decided to take the vacant space over near their existing Jasper location in 2024 to provide additional storage and prep space for Panini's. The property left room to offer takeout, too. "We didn't know what to do with the front half of that space," Caruso said. "That's when fried chicken came up … So that's how that started, and then that brand exploded. It still does extremely well."
Caruso said he picked both of Panini's newest locations, in part, because they were already outfitted as restaurants, saving him around $70,000 each in kitchen HVAC equipment alone.
Looking ahead, Caruso said he hopes use events to draw more people to Panini's on Stony Plain Road, such as ticketed Sunday dinners with entertainment like live pianists and opera singers.
He also suggested further change to the family business is all but inevitable. "Rob and I get bored quickly," he said. "It's like, 'OK, this feels easy. Now, what are we going to do instead?' We like feeling that pressure of the next thing — my mother-in-law says I'm addicted to it."