Smart Kitchens

Opened in April 2020 – right after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down countless traditional restaurants – Smart Kitchens is Irvine’s most prominent ghost kitchen, serving as a trial space for multiple restaurant concepts and incubator for chefs hoping to have their own brick-and-mortar locations. Up to 14 different small businesses share commercial kitchen space within the facility, which offers no interior seating or customer-facing staffing of its own. (A second location, “Smart Kitchens 2.0,” has notably been in the works for years, promising space for 23 concepts within a two-floor building near the Irvine Spectrum Center.)

First-time visitors can get a sense of what’s available using sometimes outdated TV-based menus and printed individual restaurant hours found on the left and right sides of the space. Orders can be placed in person using one of two tablets at a center kiosk, or online through delivery services such as Doordash, Fantuan, Grubhub, Postmates, and Uber Eats – possibly at higher prices, but also with access to buy-one-get-one discounts that aren’t available in person. Visitors can request text messages to signal when orders are ready; if your order isn’t ready when expected, you’re expected to ring a doorbell next to each business’s operating hours to get their attention.

As of July 2026, the collection of Smart Kitchen vendors includes:

• Chic Now Hainan Chicken Rice – Singaporean/Hainanese chicken rice, also found at Rodeo 39
• Farooj Rotisserie Chicken – Middle Eastern rotisserie and charcoal chicken, lamb chops, dips, and salads
• Goodman’s Curry – Japanese, Indian, and French curries
• Gourmet Burger – offers burgers, wings, chicken strips, and other deep-fried items
• Grand Fu Yuan – Chinese stir-fries, hot pot, dry pot, and other entrees
• Lao Tang Jia / Soup Master / Towkay – Listed under multiple names, offers Chinese soups, salads, and seafood, as well as beef brisket rice and supposedly “iberico pork” dishes that almost certainly aren’t using Spanish iberico pork (shown)
• Matsuya Kitchen – Japanese/Korean fusion, including ramen, bulgogi, and curry
• Newport Lobster Express – Vietnamese and cajun seafood, affiliated with an unspecified Garden Grove restaurant
• Picante Martin’s – Balboa Islands Mexican-American, including tacos and burritos
• Suren – Persian kababs, salads, and dips (smoky eggplant, shown)
• Sushi Atelier – pricey sushi rolls (“Los Angeles,” shown), sashimi, nigiri, and poke
• Thai Street Food by George – Thai basics including salads, satay, noodles, and curries