With a baker's dozen individual kitchens housing established local food brands, Vancouver's newest food hall is looking to revolutionize the take-out dining game.
Club Kitchen, located in a deceptively large space at 988 Expo Blvd in downtown Vancouver, held its official grand opening on Thursday, May 9, though a few of the restaurants have been dishing up eats for a few weeks now.
The business boasts 13 fully-equipped kitchens in two formats: "western" (with a flat-top grill) and "wok-style" for Asian cuisine. Customers can order from any or all of the restaurants at once, but will only have one bill, and, if they opt for delivery, one fee.
A concierge employee in Club Kitchen's storefront area coordinates the orders for customer or delivery person pick-up.
Pizza, sushi, fried chicken among available options
The goal for Club Kitchen is two-fold, Food And Beverage Operations Manager JJ Fraser told V.I.A. during a behind-the-scenes tour of the space. The business gives access to lots of different restaurants for consumers and gives those restaurants access to downtown-area customers.
So far, nine of the 13 kitchens are occupied by restaurants: Barbarella pizza, Hello Nori, Dragon Bowl, IndiCo, Hui Lau Shan, Chirpyhut, Pearl Castle, Wings Chkn Shack, and Thai Away Home (who signed their paperwork on the grand opening day, noted Fraser).
Club Kitchen's approach is to work with established food businesses, rather than start-ups new to the industry, to avoid the level of marketing a new concept often needs to get off the ground.
Unified under one operational umbrella, Club Kitchen shoulders the burden of being the lease-holders, so the restaurants sign licensing agreements for their spaces, explained Fraser. That means maintenance, refrigeration, and dealing with Vancouver Coastal Health are centralized, for example.
The one-time signing cost is $50,000, which Fraser pointed out is considerably less than what a restaurant business will pay to move into a commercial space in downtown Vancouver. The agreement terms are flexible, though Fraser says most are signed on for three years. Restaurants at Club Kitchen participate in a revenue share and operational costs are divided among occupants.
Unique layouts and special features for kitchens
While each kitchen is equipped with everything a restaurant needs, from the dishwasher to prep space, restaurants are welcome to make any modifications needed - at their expense - to ensure the private kitchen has what they need. For Barbarella, that means a pizza oven, while Hello Nori has added a special grill to make a line of skewers exclusive to their menu for Club Kitchen customers.
All of the kitchens have a unique layout and are accessed from a central hallway behind the storefront. However, Club Kitchen's space allows for one key feature: the kitchens have street-facing windows.
Fraser, who joked he has spent his fair share of time in windowless restaurant kitchens, pointed out how beneficial natural light is for restaurant workers. The windows also mean customers can peek inside Club Kitchen from the outside, too, giving them a glimpse at the meals being made.
Each restaurant has its own in-kitchen terminal for managing orders, which are brought to the front when they are ready. On the customer side, those ordering from more than one Club Kitchen restaurant at once will see they have a primary order number appended with a 1, 2, 3, and so on for each restaurant in the order.
Club Kitchen 'very much not' a ghost kitchen
As food delivery and take-out continue to be popular dining options for Vancouverites, Club Kitchen's model is not quite the same as others that exist in the city, have come and gone, or are in the works. Club Kitchen isn't a commissary, automat, or ghost kitchen.
For example, Food Republic was positioned as a high-tech food hall (with robots making salads); it opened in 2023 but has since closed, and will be replaced by the modern "automat" franchise Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. Metro Vancouver is home to many commissary kitchens, such as YVR Prep, which provide shared space to small and often brand-new food businesses that make packaged products or do limited take-out and delivery.
However, "ghost kitchen" might be the most familiar term; that concept means an existing restaurant or commercial kitchen is home to one or more other restaurant brands without a space of their own. Club Kitchen is "very much not" a ghost kitchen, Fraser clarified.
Customers can order from Club Kitchen via its website and there is also an in-store kiosk to use to order on the spot. Ordering is open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
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