Among the many nice many issues there are to determine at Marvel is describe to prospects what it’s. The enterprise doesn’t match neatly into an present meals service class. “Supply firm” implies simply an app and courier community, like Uber Eats or Grubhub, however Marvel makes all its personal meals in its personal kitchens, too. “Ghost kitchen” and “digital restaurant” describe manufacturers that exist solely as a menu on an app, with no street-level business presence; Marvel has slickly designed areas the place prospects can order, choose up, and, at the least in idea, dine in at a handful of tables. Recently, the corporate’s inner inventive group of seven has coalesced across the tagline “A New Type of Meals Corridor.”

“I believe that will get to the variability facet,” stated Daniel Shlossman, who left a task because the advertising chief at Sweetgreen to affix Marvel’s senior management group in 2023. But additionally, he stated, “we discuss it because the ‘super-app of mealtime,’” an outline that sums up Mr. Lore’s ambition for Marvel’s app to promote and ship not solely meals from its personal kitchens, however meals from different eating places, too, in addition to meal kits, even groceries. (Marvel’s choices should not obtainable through different supply apps, which implies prospects must need its meals sufficient to hunt it out.)

At the moment, although, the primary focus at Marvel is getting its personal eating places up and working. Its kitchens don’t require gas-powered stoves and exhaust programs to vent cooking fumes, making for cheaper, faster build-outs. Every thing on the Marvel menu is designed to be cooked utilizing three items of electrical gear: a scorching water tub, a rapid-cook oven, and a fryer.

Throughout a go to to Parsippany in January, Mr. Shlossman took me to see Marvel’s analysis and improvement middle, a collection of gleaming take a look at kitchens staffed with dozens {of professional} cooks clad in Marvel-branded chef’s whites.

Marvel prepares and in lots of instances, par-cooks, all of its menu objects in giant commissary amenities, then distributes the dishes individually portioned to its eating places, the place staff can end the preparation in a matter of minutes, with little cooking ability required. This permits the eating places to be staffed by what Mr. Lore calls “evenly skilled labor.”