The central kitchen model means one production kitchen cooks the heavy, slow or skill-dependent parts of the menu, and smaller outlets receive that food daily and finish, heat, assemble and serve it. The gravies, marinades, doughs, stocks and sweets are made once by your best cooks; the outlet near the customer does the last ten minutes. It is also called a commissary or hub-and-spoke kitchen.
This explainer covers what a central kitchen does and does not do, the cost maths at three outlets, what to centralise and what to keep local, the daily logistics, the licensing, and the situations where the model is the wrong move. It assumes you have one or two outlets and are deciding whether the third should come with a hub.
What the central kitchen does and what the outlet does
The split is by stage of cooking rather than by dish. Almost every Indian menu item has a base that keeps and a finish that does not.
The hub makes the bases: onion-tomato masala, dal that is boiled and tempered later, biryani masala and marinated meat, kebab mixes, batters, chutneys, doughs, dessert components, portioned frozen items. These are cooked in bulk, chilled fast, packed in labelled portions and sent out.
The outlet does the finish: tempering the dal, cooking the marinated chicken, layering and dum for biryani from pre-cooked rice and masala, frying, grilling, plating, packing for delivery, and serving dine-in. Finishing takes a smaller kitchen, a smaller team and less skill, which is the whole economic point.
Some items stay entirely at the outlet because they do not travel: fresh rotis, dosas, anything that must go from pan to plate in two minutes. Some move entirely to the hub: sweets, bakery, sauces. The menu design for a multi-outlet brand starts with sorting every item into one of these three buckets.
The cost maths at three outlets
The model pays when the hub's cost is less than what it removes from the outlets. Here is an illustrative comparison for a three-outlet brand, with round numbers to show the shape; your own figures will differ.
| Monthly cost line | Three full kitchens | Hub plus three finishing outlets |
|---|---|---|
| Outlet rent (smaller kitchen area) | ₹2,40,000 | ₹1,80,000 |
| Hub rent (industrial area) | 0 | ₹60,000 |
| Skilled cooks | 6 at ₹25,000 = ₹1,50,000 | 3 at the hub = ₹75,000 |
| Outlet kitchen staff | 9 at ₹15,000 = ₹1,35,000 | 6 at ₹15,000 = ₹90,000 |
| Equipment (amortised) | ₹45,000 | ₹35,000 |
| Daily transport | 0 | ₹40,000 |
| Wastage from over-prep | Higher (three guesses) | Lower (one plan) |
| Total shown | ₹5,70,000 | ₹4,80,000 |
The saving in this illustration is around ₹90,000 a month, before counting lower wastage and more consistent food. At two outlets the hub rent and transport usually eat the saving. At five outlets the gap widens, because the hub's fixed cost is spread further. That is why the question is usually "do we build the hub with outlet three or outlet four", and the broader planning sequence is in how to open a second restaurant outlet.
What to centralise and what to keep local
Centralise when an item is labour-heavy, skill-heavy, bought in bulk, or better after resting. Keep it local when it is fast, fragile, or ordered in unpredictable mixes.
- Centralise: gravies and bases, marinades, stocks, dals (boiled), rice (par-cooked for biryani), kebab and tikki mixes, doughs for naan and pizza, desserts, chutneys and sauces, portioned proteins, dry-fried items that reheat well.
- Keep local: rotis and parathas, dosas and idlis, fried items served crisp, salads and raita, grilling and tandoor finish, plating and packing, tea and coffee.
- Decide case by case: biryani (hub makes components, outlet does dum), pizza (hub makes dough and sauce, outlet tops and bakes), momos (hub fills and freezes, outlet steams).
Write the decision for every item into the recipe document with the hub's portion spec and the outlet's finishing steps. This document is the brand, and it is the same one a multi-outlet operation needs for consistency, as the pillar on multi-outlet restaurant management explains.
The daily run: order sheets, cold chain and timing
The hub cooks against a plan, not against a feeling. Each outlet sends a next-day requirement sheet by a cut-off, say 6 pm, based on its sales and current stock. The hub consolidates the sheets, cooks overnight or early morning, chills, packs and labels per outlet.
Transport is the fragile link. Chilled items travel in insulated boxes with ice packs or in a small reefer van; anything that will sit above 5 degrees Celsius for more than a couple of hours is a food safety risk, and in Indian summers that means every item. One run per day before the outlets open is normal; busy brands do a second run before dinner.
At the outlet, received items are checked against the sheet, dated, and stored first-in-first-out. Any item that arrives warm goes back. The whole loop depends on the requirement sheet being accurate, and the sheet is only accurate if the outlet knows yesterday's sales by item, which is where ordering data comes in.
Licensing and food safety for a hub
The central kitchen is a food business in its own right and needs its own FSSAI licence, usually a state licence given its turnover, and each outlet keeps its own registration or licence. Transport of food between your own units should carry a delivery challan with item, quantity and date. Labels on every packed portion with the item, pack date, use-by date and batch keep inspections short and recalls possible.
Build in temperature logs at three points: leaving the hub, arriving at the outlet, and in the outlet fridge. A clipboard is fine. The brands that get into trouble are the ones with no record at all, not the ones with a simple one.
When the central kitchen is the wrong move
Fewer than three outlets. The hub's rent, transport and a dedicated team rarely pay for themselves with two spokes.
Outlets more than an hour apart. Transport cost rises, food quality falls, and a late van shuts down an outlet's lunch.
A menu that does not hold. If your selling point is fresh-fried, pan-to-plate or made-to-order, centralising the wrong steps will show in the food and in ratings within a month.
No data from the outlets. A hub cooking blind over-produces for one outlet and under-produces for another. If outlets cannot tell you yesterday's sales by item, fix that before building anything.
A multi-brand cloud kitchen that already shares one kitchen across brands is a different structure with similar benefits, and is often the better first step; see running three brands from one kitchen.
How ordering data feeds the hub
The requirement sheet is the hub's production plan, and the best requirement sheet is generated from what each outlet actually sold, by item, by day of week. If every outlet's orders flow through one system, head office sees Tuesday's biryani count at each outlet and the hub can plan Wednesday's rice and masala from it. Outlets that sell on aggregators plus phone plus walk-in have to add this up by hand, and the sheet is usually wrong by Friday.
This is one reason brands moving to a hub also put every outlet's ordering on one system. Tezzu is one way to do that: each outlet runs as its own store profile under one account, with its own WhatsApp number, store page, menu and delivery zones, and reporting across stores shows orders and revenue per outlet, which gives the hub a cleaner picture of what each outlet sold to cook against. The systems that have to change as outlets multiply are in scaling from 1 to 10 outlets.
See how multi-outlet ordering works for restaurants
Each outlet as its own store under one account, with its own number and menu, and reporting across stores your hub can plan from.
See how it works for restaurantsFrequently asked questions
What is a central kitchen model in restaurants?
A single production kitchen prepares the bulk, skill-heavy parts of the menu, such as gravies, marinades, doughs and desserts, and supplies them daily to smaller outlets that finish, assemble and serve. The outlets need less space, fewer skilled cooks and less equipment, and the food is more consistent because it is made once by the same team.
How many outlets do you need for a central kitchen to make sense?
Usually three or more within about an hour's drive of each other. Below that, the hub's rent, transport and dedicated staff tend to cost more than they save. Above that, every extra outlet spreads the hub's fixed cost further, which is why brands planning five or more outlets often build the hub early.
What is the difference between a central kitchen and a cloud kitchen?
A cloud kitchen cooks complete dishes for delivery to customers, with no dine-in. A central kitchen cooks components for your own outlets, which then finish and sell them. A brand can run both: a hub that supplies several cloud kitchens and dine-in outlets. The hub serves your outlets; the cloud kitchen serves customers.
Does a central kitchen need a separate FSSAI licence?
Yes. The hub is its own food business premises and needs its own FSSAI licence based on its turnover, and each outlet keeps its own registration or licence. Movement of food between units should be documented with a challan, and packed portions should carry item, pack date and use-by labels.