There are many meals in a day, so why should restaurants miss out on serving any of them? From dusk until dawn and breakfast through to post-midnight feasts, every meal and every hour could theoretically be an opportunity to make another sale and to satisfy another hungry customer. And for cloud kitchen business it looks equally luring in terms of business to operate kitchen 24X7 but how viable it depends on the feasibility factor. But there are still many cloud kitchens in metros that operate on a 24-hour basis. Brands like Call Chotu and Bhookemon can be seen sending out deliveries all day long. But as much as it is exciting for the customers, how financially practical it is for the owners is still a debate. 

Positioning and Footfall Play an Important Role

If operating a business in a sleepy town, chances are that opening through the night is not going to prove too profitable. Successful 24-hour restaurants are almost always positioned in city centers and within easy distance of transport links; these are the places where jetlagged businessmen land, where partygoers decide to refuel and insomniacs inevitably gather to dine.

Additionally, the menu needs to appeal to these people, and while keeping things simple has worked for some of the forerunners of the never closing kitchen such as Moolchand Parantha and Sanjay Chur Chur Naan of Delhi. If one is planning on switching to 24-hour opening times, one needs to be aware of what type of customers this would and could attract in the area. 

When Order Volumes Pinch

After taking decisions based on location and city, sometimes it's all about order volumes and calculating the profit loss metrics. According to an owner of six cloud kitchen brands in Kolkata, ebowl being the known one, it's not viable for most cloud kitchen brands to operate 24x7 as the order volumes are very low in the post-midnight hours until breakfast.

Currently, it's simply a demand issue that does not justify the cost of operating during night hours. While on the other hand, there are brands that may want to operate at night hours if they have a simple heat, pack, and delivery model. “This also increases brand visibility since limited options are available at night. Regardless, we operate from 11:30 am in the morning until midnight as we find that to be our optimal point currently. WE will soon be launching new brands Kolkata Local, Indian Kitchen Co., and Red Lantern,” he commented

Adding to him, Jayesh Sinha, founder, and CEO of Burger Rush commented that the cloud kitchens need to take into account their peak hours for ordering. The frequency of orders tends to decline past 1 am, and reduces to a trickle after 3 am in the morning. 

Checklist the Operational Concern 

If one is going to extend the opening hours one needs a special license to serve hot food and drinks after 11 pm, and one should be able to show that the cloud kitchen has considered operational obstacles. With no ‘opening’ or ‘close down’ checklists, cleaning and food hazard regulation tasks will need to be built into the continuous working schedule.

“A kitchen operational 24x7 will need to increase its expenses on staffing. A staff shift usually lasts 8 hours, and therefore extra staff will be required for the late-night shift when the orders will not be much. Then there is also a question of compliance with the by-laws as most of the markets are expected to shut down around midnight. A kitchen in any main market will struggle to operate post-midnight,” Sinha added.

Can be Utilized for Other Work

Jack Smith, former restaurant owner of one of the cloud businesses in Goa informed that while the business was operational, they used to utilize the time to train people to work the day and evening shifts as the night shift was slower of course. “We could also move some of the maintenance and resupply/restock functions to the night shift to take pressure off of days and evenings,” he stated.

He further shared that one needs to have a strong night manager who can think and act independently but remains within guidelines and boundaries. While there are some high-profile examples of continual opening done well and any city with a high student population inevitably has 24-hour takeaways, the 24-hour cloud kitchen scene in India is still in its relative infancy so there is a real opportunity to make the mark. 

One can testify the fact about the challenges that can be seen while operating restaurants or cloud businesses all day long by taking cues from Delhi.  In a major push to the hotel and restaurant industries, the Delhi govt allowed all restaurants in the national capital to operate 24 hours a day. Before this decision comes into force, the restaurants and hotels are allowed to operate between 7 AM in the morning to 11 PM at the night. Additionally, the restaurants which have the license to offer liquor to the customers had to pull down their shutters by 1 AM. With the latest decision, there will be no distinction between the restaurants that sell liquor or not.

Even after such relaxed norms, it is hardly seen that any restaurant or any food business operates for the whole day. One of the managers of MRP Cafe situated in Cannaught Place commented “Even if we are allowed, we cannot run it for the whole, our staff is not ready to take that grind. Earlier we thought of but when we calculated the expense it will go high up to 60 percent if we extend our timings. We take our last order at 11:30 pm and shut down by 12:30 am.

Not to mention the additional expenses, like extra electricity and water bills the kitchen will have to bear for staying open longer, during which they won’t be receiving as many orders.

24x7 cloud kitchens are what the industry should look to head towards, but the present market quite doesn’t seem ready for that yet.