E-restaurants on the rise

The sights and sounds of a restaurant kitchen but this is not a traditional restaurant. The food can only be ordered online.

"Consumers cannot come inside the restaurant and place an order. It's done either by their phone on an app or either at their desktop," said Alacarte Delivery Ken Ray.

Just like you have e-commerce sites for clothes and shoes that have no brick and mortar stores, the same thing is happening with food delivery.

Ken Ray runs a delivery-only operation with different food concepts working out of the same commissary-style kitchen.

"The consumer can order from 16 different brands. The mom wants pizza, the dad wants sushi and the kids want Mexican. Now, they can order everything together, and it's prepared, packaged and shipped together," said Ray.

Virtual restaurants all work a bit differently some deal with cyber-only brands others work with existing restaurants that want to test new concepts.

No matter how they work, you place your order through some of the many food-delivery app services including giant GrubHub.

"We've been able to help partner with restaurants who have delivery only kitchens to provide an experience that works for both the diners and the restaurants," said Grubhub COO Stan Chia.

GrubHub says technology and food have found the perfect recipe, that delivery platforms can track what customers like and do not like-so that restaurants can adjust menus.

Ray has partnered with some delivery apps and also has a platform of his own. But, he is not stopping there.

"We're looking at drone deliveries, predictive ordering, voice-activated ordering. So, we're really bringing existing technologies that are there and just really molding them to fit into our industry," said Ray.