Panic! at the Goop Kitchen

New York City's hottest takeout spot is a tiny beige room in Midtown.

On Thursday afternoon, we joined the hordes of office workers who wanted to try Goop Kitchen—the newest outpost of Gwyneth Paltrow's fast-casual chain that promises to "accelerate the clean-food movement," one Caesar wrap at a time. 

Technically, you cannot eat your Goop Kitchen food at the Goop Kitchen—it's located inside the "Picnic Digital Food Court" on West 46th Street, so one must place their order for pickup or delivery, and eat it elsewhere. It's one of hundreds of "ghost kitchens" that are spreading across New York City like…hmm, what's the word for cells that keep growing and growing and don't stop until they kill?

The ghost kitchen itself isn't much to look at, some screens to order things on and some benches to sit at and stare at your phone while your food is prepared out of sight. Delivery cyclists with massive thermal backpacks and thick helmets sauntered in to grab their cargo. 

As I and other Goop Kitchen devotees would soon discover, the icon for the "restaurant" on the ordering kiosk wasn't accepting orders, and on the website, hungry users were told that it would take more than two hours to pick up a single salad. We had totally miscalculated the demand for Gwyneth Paltrow bowls sold out of a fast food sweatshop in the center of the slop bowl capital of the free world.

"This is really unfortunate," a 20-something man in a collared shirt remarked upon discovering that he would not be eating Goop Kitchen today. Rather than order from any of the other 30+ "restaurants" located at the ghost kitchen, he and his group of colleagues departed.

"I heard the food is amazing," a woman named Meredith said as she too exited empty-handed, though she was quick to add that she "can't stand Gwyneth Paltrow."

"I think she's part of that RFK Jr. blah blah blah," Meredith explained. "But I was in the area and I really wanted to try it."

The restaurant had just opened on Monday—who had told her that the food was so good? "I think it was an influencer," Meredith replied.

Last week, Paltrow told Eater that the Midtown location was part of a "robust road map" for expanding her franchise across New York.

"I'm from here [New York], and all my friends and family were about to kill me if we didn't open Goop Kitchen in New York," Paltrow said. "It's really become a thing: People land in California and text me their order; next question is when is this coming to New York. I think it's thrilling. It's a homecoming in a certain sense for me."

While it's not clear if anyone is yet willing to commit murder for one of Paltrow's gluten-free flatbread pizzas (give it time), there were some who did the takeout equivalent, and ordered their Goop Kitchen lunch orders 24 hours beforehand.

Two women who were waiting to pick up their "G-Potle Taco Crunch Bowl" and "Brentwood Chinese Chicken Salad," and who declined to provide their names ("We work in finance and we're not allowed to talk to the press"), said they knew to order far in advance because someone else in their office found success that way.