Local Kitchens raised $40M to run multi-brand restaurants as ghost kitchens died

Local Kitchens runs tech-enabled restaurants in Northern California serving local brands and nationally known chefs from one kitchen.

$40M Series B plus an unannounced Series A follow-on; $75M total (June 2024)

DoorDash alumni Jon Goldsmith and Andrew Munday founded Local Kitchens in San Francisco in 2020 with Jordan Bramble, aiming to bring dishes from local restaurants and nationally recognized chefs to Northern California consumers.

By 2024 Local Kitchens ran 12 locations, employing the people cooking the food and training them with partners like Sushirrito and Boba Guys and chefs like Mason Hereford of New Orleans' Turkey and the Wolf — Bon Appétit's 2017 'Best New Restaurant in America'. Goldsmith claimed the model achieved 50% more sales per person per labor hour than traditional restaurants, letting it reinvest in hiring and training. General Catalyst led the $40M Series B and a previously unannounced Series A follow-on, joined by Human Capital, Pear VC and DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang, who joined the board.

It kept the ghost kitchen's efficiency — multi-brand ordering from one kitchen — and replaced its weakness, absentee quality control, by employing the cooks.

Dining rooms add the human connection delivery-only kitchens lacked, and a second revenue behaviour beyond app orders.

General Catalyst doubled down while category peers died, an explicit contrarian underwrite of the operator model.

In a dying category, the survivors changed the unworkable part: owning operations instead of renting kitchen space turned ghost-kitchen economics into restaurant economics.

As of June 2024, Local Kitchens had 12 locations, unit-level profitability, and plans to expand into Los Angeles and new communities beyond California, with $75 million raised.