Mysterious "Boston Central Kitchen Express"

[Prav]

What is this late-night delivery place about?

http://bostoncentralkitchenexpress.com/

They offer a gazillion different cuisines with a gazillion options. Just browsed the Vietnamese menu and it seems pretty comprehensive.

I don't think you can go there and eat. I can't imagine the food is chowish (there're some dismal reviews on Yelp), but I'm intrigued on how this place operates. Maybe they outsource everything to real Vietnamese/Chinese/Italian/etc restaurants, and charge a mark-up?

[PinchOfSalt]

Apparently this is a virtual restaurant. Look at the website and you will see it is "powered by" eat24.com. Go to THAT website and you will discover that it is indeed an intermediary that lets you order from some number of restaurants in your area. The good news is at least the eat24.com site is honest about what is going on and you know where your food is coming from. No doubt they get a fee from the restaurants that they front for. I wonder how many jack up their prices for orders from eat24.com to cover the fee.

[kobuta]

Doesn't it seem weird that a food intermediary needs to partner with other food intermediary sites? (E.g., foodler, eat24...)

[PinchOfSalt]

Perhaps their business strategy concentrates on funneling in as many visitors to their website as possible by any available means.

[kobuta]

I see them on foodler.com under every single cuisine option, and even in option starved parts of Cambridge it doesn't tempt me to give them a try. Suspicious of any place that thinks they can master every regional cuisine...everywhere.

If anyone decides to take one for the team and give them a try, let us know!

EDIT: I just clicked on their website link and see what you mean about the picture of Central Kitchen on their site. This seems awful shady, given they have no affiliation with Central Kitchen on Mass Ave at all. This doesn't bode well.

[jgg13]

If you think that's shady, you should look at the google street view. That address is also AKA "Guido Frames"

[Bob Dobalina]

This is REALLY odd - Central Kitchen is clearly depicted on the website (under the "About Us" tab) - but the restaurant address is on Damrell Street, near Andrew Square in Southie. It does not appear to have any affiliation with Central Kitchen (so probably should remove the place link on your original post). I wonder if the CK people are aware of this. The yelp reviews (which are linked from the website) pretty much says it sucks. Yelp also links to bostoncentralpizza.com which appears to also be a site for the place.

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Central Kitchen
567 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139

[yumyum]

The yelp reviews are hilarious. Clearly these guys don't know what yelp is, or they'd pay to remove them.

[Prav]

Doh - didn't even notice that it auto-added Central Kitchen to my post. Removed.

Thanks, Mister Dobalina, Mister Bob Dobalina.