2021 QUICK FACTS

$46.24 BILLION a significant spike in usage of restaurant mobile apps during the pandemic. Bluedot’s April survey found that 51% of customers were using a mobile app; that number shot up to 64% by July. Overall, 88% of the survey’s respondents said they now use mobile apps more often to order food, groceries and other products.

A big chunk of that food-delivery windfall is going to thirdparty aggregators, which have been both a well-documented boon and a bane to the pizza industry. In a June study by Service Management Group, a global customer, patient and employee experience management partner, nearly half of the respondents had ordered delivery from a third-party service in the past three months. But the study also found the majority of restaurant customers still preferred to pick up their orders. Seventy-five percent reported using a drive-through in the previous 90 days, 55% had tried carryout, and 51% had given curbside pickup a go.

These numbers suggest customers trust their favorite restaurants more than the big aggregators. And they also suggest that pizzerias offering a wide array of contactless

78,092

$592,214 options—from curbside and drive-through pickup to oldschool doorstep drop-offs—are on the right track and should stay the course in 2021.

Seeing Ghosts

Speaking of the off-premise boom, 2020 turned a little spooky as ghost kitchens—specialized facilities for delivery-only restaurant models—materialized around the country. A September 17 article in The Washington Post reported that the pandemic-related surge in food delivery “has made ghost kitchens and virtual eateries one of the only growth areas in the restaurant industry.” Michael Shafer, Technomic’s global lead for food and beverage, told the newspaper that there were about 1,500 ghost kitchens operating in the U.S., and Euromonitor International predicted this model could create a $1 trillion global market by 2030.

Ghost kitchens—also called cloud kitchens or virtual kitchens—go hand in hand with virtual restaurants, which exist only online. Case in point: CEC Entertainment, owner of the kid-friendly Chuck E. Cheese chain. When CEC