There’s work involved in making the shift to delivery and takeaway — time and money that a restaurant likely does not have to spend. In the best-case scenario, the model effectively turns restaurants into so-called “ghost kitchens,” eliminating the need for nearly all front-of-house staff. David Chang has called the pivot to delivery “fools gold.”

The most important shift in restaurants in the past decade has been the rise of online ordering and delivery. UberEats, Postmates, Doordash, and a handful of other apps have been knife-fighting (in extremely uneconomical ways) for the privilege of becoming food delivery aggregators. Own enough customer demand, the thinking goes, and not only will r... See more