Dubai’s Ghost Kitchen Startup Kitopi Scores Big Space in Manhattan
With their second location deal sealed, the startup plans to continue its expansion in the United States.
After their expansion to New York in December last year, ghost kitchen operator Kitopi gains its first lease in Manhattan, New York City. The Dubai-based startup operating in the UK and MENA has signed a 10-year lease for a 7,500 square feet space at Greenwich Village, in a deal brokered by Lee & Associates. Moving forward, Kitopi’s virtual kitchen operations will occupy the ground floor of the remainder of a six-story building that was previously owned by Francois Payard’s eponymous bakeries, which shut down in 2018. A spokesperson from the startup announced that Kitopi plans to open the space by the end of the year’s first quarter.
Established in the UAE in 2017 by Mo Ballout, Andy Arenas, and Sam Darkan, the startup has been rapidly expanding throughout the region, as well as globally, where it has provided excellent restaurant-related solutions in Dubai, Riyadh, Beirut, and London, with a portfolio of hundreds of restaurants and several partnerships with similar startups such as Kuwait’s Carriage, Saudi’s HungerStation, DeliveryHero’s Middle Eastern’s operating leg, Talabat, the UK’s Deliveroo, and UberEATS.
Kitopi manages free space for delivery-only restaurants, allowing them to rent space to satisfy their virtual kitchen fantasies and further disrupt the food-tech ecosystem. The Dubai-based startup is part of a growing list of companies who are making their entry to the freshly-established sector, with Kitchen United and Cloud Kitchens as an example of competitors. Previously, Kitopi opened its first location in the United States, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and has plans to continue expanding in the greater New York area and the United States as a whole.
