Ghost stories

For those not familiar with the term, a ghost kitchen is a restaurant kitchen without the rest of the restaurant. There is no place to order (you order online or over the phone), and no place to sit. Ghost kitchens exist almost entirely to serve delivery and, in some cases, take-out customers. And in many cases, a single ghost kitchen dishes up food from multiple restaurants.

As for The Counter’s “Redwood City” location, the card I received indicates that the location is delivery only, although the website printed on the card (order.thecounter.com/menu/redwood-city) states that it is open for takeout as well. Ever curious, I paid a visit to the listed street address and learned that the kitchen is a venture called “Redwood City Eats” that makes dishes from not only The Counter, but also from a Filipino restaurant called Pamilya and another called “Chicken Strips and Dips.” Redwood City Eats’ website (redwoodcityeats.com) lets you order from any of these for pickup (but not for delivery, it seems), but you cannot mix and match. Ordering something from one of its restaurants and something from another seems to require you to place separate orders.

Redwood City Eats is by no means our area’s first ghost kitchen. I was first introduced to the concept three years ago, after I observed the empty restaurant space at 1531 Main St. being remodeled. The remodeled building – now painted bright red – was soon revealed as a DoorDash kitchen: a ghost kitchen producing a variety of menus for delivery exclusively through DoorDash. Back then, DoorDash partnered with Nation’s Giant Hamburgers, Rooster & Rice, Humphry Slocombe, and The Halal Guys. These days the list is somewhat different, with the much of the food coming from Chick-fil-A’s menu.

The point of a ghost kitchen is that you shouldn’t have to know that the food is coming from one, unless you opt to pick it up (which you apparently can do at the DoorDash kitchen). If you order something via DoorDash from the Chick-fil-A menu, do you care if it comes from the ghost kitchen on Main Street or the actual Chick-fil-A restaurant on Redwood City’s Whipple Avenue? Which leads me to another recent find along this line: Noshery, in San Carlos (you’ll also find one in San Mateo).

Noshery bills itself as a “food hall.” Unlike a ghost kitchen, it actually has a proper storefront where you can order, and a handful of tables at which you can sit. But its primary focus is on delivery and takeout. Like the two Redwood City-area ghost kitchens, it serves food from the menus of a number of restaurants, but here the restaurant names are proudly displayed. A card I was given when I walked by the San Carlos location lists six restaurants, and the website for Noshery lists eight, but try to order from the San Carlos location and you’ll see that, for now, it’s only serving dishes from five: The Melt, Oren’s Hummus, East Side Banh Mi, The Little Chihuahua (Mexican food), and Humphry Slocombe (ice cream). And from those five, don’t expect the full menu. From The Melt, for instance, although you can order a variety of MeltBurgers, you cannot order the dish that gave that restaurant its name: a melted cheese sandwich. But surely the restaurant mix and even perhaps the specific menu items will change over time to reflect customer demand, so ask — and keep checking back — if you’re looking for something else.

Noshery may not be a true ghost kitchen, but it has some of the elements of one, with the addition of a welcoming storefront and the ability to order and eat on the premises. Although I have yet to try the food, Noshery seems well worth checking out. It’s located at 1754 Laurel St. in San Carlos, and is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. As for San Mateo, that location also serves dishes from Kasa Indian Eatery, C&C Curry House, and The Pastry Cupboard. It can be found at the corner of Baldwin and S. Ellsworth avenues, and is open every day from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.