How to start a cloud kitchen (delivery-only brand) in Egypt

A cloud kitchen looks cheap on paper. No dining room, no waiters, no prime street frontage. Then the first month closes and the owner discovers that the costs did not disappear, they moved: into packaging, rider fees, app commissions and the marketing you now need because nobody walks past your door.

This guide is for operators in Egypt deciding whether to open a delivery-only brand, or to bolt one onto an existing restaurant. You will get a per-order formula to run with your own numbers, a way to pick a location by delivery radius instead of footfall, a plan for using Talabat and the other apps without handing them your whole business, and a test for which dishes belong on a delivery menu at all.

1Three kinds of cloud kitchen, three different risks

"Cloud kitchen", "dark kitchen" and "ghost kitchen" get used interchangeably, but the setups behind them are different businesses.

• A standalone delivery-only kitchen. You rent a small unit, fit out a kitchen and sell only through delivery and pickup. Lowest rent, highest dependence on delivery channels, because you have no dining room to build a reputation in.
• A virtual brand inside an existing restaurant. Your dine-in kitchen cooks a second menu under a second name, usually in the quiet hours. Almost no extra fixed cost. The risk is that the new brand slows down tickets for your real guests on a busy Thursday night.
• A shared or commissary kitchen. You rent a station in a facility that several brands use. Fast to start, but you share exhaust, storage and sometimes staff, and your food safety depends partly on your neighbours.

If you already run a restaurant with idle kitchen hours between lunch and dinner, the virtual brand is by far the cheapest experiment. If you are starting from zero, a standalone unit gives you control but the full weight of fixed costs from day one.

2The per-order maths: dine-in versus delivery-only

In a dine-in restaurant, rent and service staff are the big fixed costs, and each extra cover is cheap to serve. In a delivery-only kitchen, rent and staff shrink, but every single order carries variable costs that a dine-in plate does not: a box, a bag, sauces in pots, a rider, and usually a commission.

Work out your contribution per order first:

Contribution = order value − food cost − packaging − commission − rider or delivery cost − any discount you fund

Here is an illustration with made-up but plausible numbers. Replace every figure with your own quotes before you trust the result.

Line (illustration only)	Order via a delivery app	Direct order (your link or WhatsApp)
Order value	EGP 320	EGP 320
Food cost	EGP 100	EGP 100
Packaging and bag	EGP 18	EGP 18
Commission (say the app takes a quarter)	EGP 80	EGP 0
Rider (you arrange delivery yourself)	EGP 0	EGP 35
Discount you fund to win the order	EGP 0	EGP 20
Contribution	EGP 122	EGP 147

Now the break-even. Add up your monthly fixed costs: rent, salaries, utilities, gas, software, and a marketing budget (you need one, because you have no street presence). Say that comes to EGP 95,000. Divide by contribution per order:

Break-even orders per month = fixed costs ÷ contribution per order

At EGP 122 per order that is roughly 780 orders a month, or about 26 a day. Ask yourself honestly whether a brand nobody has heard of will get 26 orders a day in month two. If the answer is "maybe by month six", your working capital has to cover the gap.

3Choosing a location by delivery radius, not footfall

A dine-in restaurant pays for visibility. A delivery kitchen pays for reach. The questions change completely:

1. Who lives inside a reasonable ride? Draw a radius your food can cover while still hot, then look at what is inside it: compounds, offices, university housing, residential blocks. A burger brand near offices in Smart Village has a lunch business; the same brand in a residential compound in October lives on evenings and weekends.
2. Is the area covered well by the apps you plan to use? Delivery apps set zones. A cheap unit just outside a dense zone can mean you are invisible to the customers you wanted.
3. Can riders get in and out? A rider waiting five minutes for parking outside a narrow street in a crowded district costs you food quality on every order.
4. Will the building allow a commercial kitchen? Exhaust, gas, ventilation and your neighbours' tolerance for smell and noise matter more than rent. A kitchen that gets complaints from residents is a kitchen that gets inspected.

A delivery-only kitchen still needs the same licences as any food business, including the public shop licence and food safety registration. Our guide to restaurant licences and permits in Egypt walks through the order to tackle them in.

4Delivery apps versus direct orders: use both, in sequence

A new delivery brand has no audience. The apps have one. That is the honest reason almost every cloud kitchen launches on Talabat, elmenus or similar: they bring the first customers. The trade-off is the commission, the app's control over your ranking, and the fact that the customer relationship belongs to the app. You usually do not get the customer's phone number in a form you can market to.

So treat the apps as the acquisition channel and your own menu as the retention channel:

• Put a small card in every bag with a QR code to your own menu and a WhatsApp number, plus a concrete reason to order direct next time (a free side, a larger portion, a combo only available direct).
• Make the direct menu genuinely easier than the app for a repeat customer: saved address, the same photos, clear delivery fee and minimum order.
• Track what share of your orders come direct each month. That one number tells you whether the brand is building an asset or renting one.

For the full argument on commission maths and how to shift regulars, read building direct ordering to escape platform commissions. If WhatsApp is where your direct orders land today, how to take WhatsApp orders without chaos covers the operational side.

5Building a menu that survives the ride

In a dining room, a dish is judged 30 seconds after it leaves the pass. In delivery it is judged 25 to 40 minutes later, in a box, on a sofa. Some of your best dine-in dishes should never go on a delivery menu.

The travel test

Before any item goes live: cook it, pack it exactly as a rider would receive it, put it in a car and drive around for 30 minutes, then open it at a table and eat it the way a customer would. Fries that went soft, crispy coatings that steamed, sauces that leaked, bread that went soggy: fix the packaging or cut the item.

Rules for a delivery menu

• Keep it short. A focused list of items you can execute from one or two stations beats a long menu that needs a full brigade. Fewer items also means fewer ingredients to waste.
• Design for combos. A main, a side and a drink as one tap raises order value and simplifies packing.
• Every item needs a real photo. With no dining room, the photo is the only way the guest judges the food. Use your own dish, shot in your packaging, not a stock picture of something you do not serve.
• Write modifiers carefully. "No onions", sauce on the side, spice level. Each modifier should map to one clear instruction on the kitchen ticket.
• Bilingual names. In Cairo and Giza, an Arabic name with an English line underneath (or the reverse) helps both local and expat customers search and order.

Our guide to building a takeaway and delivery menu that converts goes deeper on menu structure and descriptions.

6Running more than one brand from one kitchen

The appeal of multi-brand kitchens is simple: one rent, one team, several menus competing for different searches. A kitchen that makes great grilled chicken can run a shawarma brand, a rice bowl brand and a salad brand from overlapping ingredients.

It works when you plan the ingredient overlap deliberately. List every ingredient across all brands and mark which brand uses it. Anything used by only one item in one brand is a waste risk. It fails when each brand needs its own specialist station, or when all brands peak at the same hour and the pass jams.

Each brand also needs its own identity online: its own name, logo, menu link and QR code on its own packaging. Customers should never open a bag from "Brand A" and find a menu card for "Brand B".

If you run your direct menus on Menyo, the Professional plan (USD 99 per month) covers delivery and takeaway ordering with delivery zones, minimum order and delivery fee rules, up to 10 menus across up to 3 places, so each brand can have its own page and QR code. Guests can also receive order confirmation and status updates on WhatsApp.

7Launch checklist for a delivery-only brand

• Contribution per order calculated with real supplier, packaging and commission quotes
• Break-even orders per day written down, plus how many months of runway cover the gap
• Delivery radius drawn and checked against app coverage zones
• Licences and food safety registration started before fit-out is finished
• Every menu item passed the 30-minute travel test in final packaging
• Own photos for every item, bilingual names where your customers need them
• Direct menu link and WhatsApp number printed on a bag insert, with a reason to order direct
• A monthly number to track: direct orders as a share of all orders

8Frequently asked questions

Is a cloud kitchen cheaper to open than a restaurant in Egypt?

Usually the fit-out and rent are lower, because you skip the dining room, furniture and front-of-house. But each order carries packaging and commission or rider costs that a dine-in plate does not. Compare contribution per order and break-even volume, not just the opening budget.

Do I need a licence for a delivery-only kitchen?

Yes. A kitchen that sells food to the public is still a food business and needs the same kind of licensing and food safety registration as a restaurant. Confirm the exact requirements for your governorate before signing a lease.

Should I launch on delivery apps or only take direct orders?

Most new brands need the apps for discovery in the first months. Use them to acquire customers, then give those customers a reason to reorder directly through your own menu or WhatsApp.

How many items should a delivery menu have?

There is no magic number. Start with what one or two stations can execute consistently at peak and what survives travel. It is easier to add a proven item than to remove a failing one that regulars ordered once.

9Start with the numbers, then the name

Most failed cloud kitchens had a good logo and a bad spreadsheet. Run the contribution formula with real quotes, check the location by radius, pass every dish through the travel test, and plan from day one how customers will find their way from the app to your own menu.

Ready to give your delivery brand its own ordering page and QR code? Start a Menyo trial and set up your menu, delivery zones and fees before your first bag goes out.