One of the many things to figure out at Wonder is how to describe what it is to customers. The company doesn’t fit neatly into any existing restaurant category. “Delivery company” just means an app and courier network like Uber Eats or Grubhub, but Wonder also makes all of its own food in its own kitchens. “Ghost kitchen” and “virtual restaurant” describe brands that exist only as a menu in an app and have no commercial presence at street level; Wonder has cleverly designed locations where customers can order, pick up and, at least in theory, dine at a few tables. Lately, the company’s seven-person in-house creative team has come together under the slogan “A New Kind of Food Hall.”
“I think this comes down to the diversity aspect,” said Daniel Shlossman, who left his position as chief marketing officer at Sweetgreen to join Wonder’s senior leadership team in 2023. But he also said, “We talk about it as a ‘super-app of mealtime,’ a description that sums up Mr. Lore’s goal with the Wonder app to provide not just food from your own kitchen, but also food from other restaurants as well as meal kits.” and even selling and delivering groceries. (Wonder’s offerings aren’t available through other delivery apps, meaning customers have to want the food enough to seek it out.)
Today, however, Wonder’s main focus is opening and operating its own restaurants. The kitchens do not require gas-powered stoves and exhaust systems to exhaust cooking fumes, making expansion cheaper and quicker. Everything on the Wonder menu is designed to be prepared using three electric appliances: a hot water bath, a pressure cooker, and a deep fryer.
During a visit to Parsippany in January, Mr. Shlossman took me to Wonder’s research and development center, a series of gleaming test kitchens staffed by dozens of professional chefs dressed in white Wonder-brand chef suits.
Wonder prepares and, in many cases, precooks all menu items at big box stores. It then distributes the individually portioned dishes to its restaurants, where employees can complete the preparation in a few minutes, with little cooking knowledge required. This allows the restaurants to be staffed with what Mr. Lore calls a “lightly trained workforce.”
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2024-03-10 09:01:54
www.nytimes.com
