No dining room. No servers. No traditional menu. At The Food Lab on Washington Road, customers build meals online while owner Ramiro Galvan uses the ghost kitchen model to test new food ideas
Galvan and his sister Patty grew up in the restaurant business and opened The Food Lab in June. It's a new concept for restaurants that's known as a ghost kitchen.
Galvan explained that a ghost kitchen is a commercial cooking space with no dine-in option. The ghost kitchen has the resources needed to create the food it serves. Orders are made through online apps and delivered by services like DoorDash or Uber Eats.
There could be several restaurants working out of one ghost kitchen, but that's
not the case at The Food Lab. Orders can also be picked up by the customer, Galvan said. The Food Lab uses DoorDash for delivery.
A ghost kitchen allows the chef to experiment with different dishes to see what customers like and what works for the restaurant, he said. It's on the online menu so they can see how it sells and the reaction to it.
"Something that you might not think that it would be good, turns out to be popular," Galvan said.
Adding a new dish to a menu can be expensive, so being able to test customer response before making it a permanent part of the menu can save time and money, he said.
That's a concept he learned the hard way. He previously owned two different restaurants that closed, both before he learned what he needed to succeed in the restaurant business, he said.
One of those was The Munchies Lab on Walton Way. It was an experimental restaurant known for creative dishes. It closed in 2022.
The Food Lab is located at 3113 Washington Road, just down from Taqueria El Patron. It is part of the El Rey Group, which is owned and operated by his family.
The Food Lab allows diners to create their own meal from a wide list of choices. Here's an example of how it works using one of the most popular items on the menu, the Big Back Box Combo, or TBBBC.
This could feed one very hungry person or, with enough additions, several hungry people.
The customer picks from a wide variety of items to include in their box, which is basically a very large pizza box. The online menu is simple to use. There are three categories to pick one from for each category.
There are several choices in each category. Here's an example:
- First, select the type of fries from the list of 13 different types of fried items. Most come with the meal, and some have an additional cost. A few of the choices are curly or smiley fries, jalapeno poppers, Waffle Fries Animal Style, or a loaded baked potato.
- Next, pick the TBBBC Rito pasta. This one has choices with interesting names like Dracula Rito, Philly Rito, Green Goddess and Chorizo Mac Pasta.
- Then choose pizza or wings with flavors such as cheesy garlic bread, chicken bacon ranch pizza, and more traditional flavors like mild, barbecue, and lemon pepper.
- After that, some extras have an additional cost. They include Birria Cheesy Cheeto Fried Balls, egg rolls, street tacos, Birria Bao Buns, and desserts such as flan and churros.
It's all about mixing and matching, experimenting, and daring to try something new. Hence the name The Food Lab, Galvan said. He encourages his employees to experiment with food, and they have.
They recently came up with a bacon and strawberry jam with jalapeños. It is so good he plans to use it on a pizza with smoked pork belly.
During this visit, a box combo was ordered with the request that Galvan make the food choices. He did not disappoint. He included a Dracula Rito, four Mexican Street Corn Wings, and a couple of slices of Yes Chef Pizza.
The Dracula Rito is a sushirto, which is sort of like a sushi roll and burrito. It has grilled chicken, steak, shrimp, and vegetables all cooked with fresh garlic, tossed in a buffalo ranch sauce, and wrapped in a nori (dried seaweed) wrapper so that it resembles a regular burrito.
It can be eaten like a burrito or sliced so that it resembles the traditional bite-size sushi. There was a buffalo sauce with it that was perfect for dipping.
The wings were fried and dipped in a sauce with fresh corn kernels. The Yes Chef pizza was topped with the chef's choice of toppings and was quite meaty.
The Food Lab also has two food trucks, a margarita mobile, and a beer truck.
Galvan said business has been strong since the opening. The catering side of the business is growing, and he's adding a machine that will professionally wrap sandwiches for coolers.
There's also another side to the business: giving back and helping others.
Patty Galvan has started a nonprofit called Corazon Bonito, or Beautiful Heart in English. She said he started it in 2023 to provide essential resources, care baskets, holiday drives, and a supportive network to help foster children and hospice patients. To learn more about the organization, visit www.facebook.com/corazonbonitoaugusta.
The brother-sister team also works with Compass For Hope, a local nonprofit that helps homeless people in the area with services like food and showers, she said. Every Sunday they hand out about 350 burritos to homeless people in Augusta.
The Food Lab is located at 3113 Washington Rd, Augusta. The hours are 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and closed on Sundays. Follow it on Facebook and Instagram. To see a menu, visit thefoodlab.kwickmenu.com.
Jennifer Miller covers food and business for The Augusta Chronicle. She can be reached at jmiller@USATodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: The Food Lab tests new dishes with ghost kitchen model | Exclusive
