HEADLINE: Neighbors Say Local Ghost Kitchens Are Out Of Control

Lunchtime is chaotic on Withered Oak Avenue, a small street in San Francisco’s Grimwood City neighborhood. Every parking spot on the block is taken, and some drivers have been double-parking or stopped in front of businesses’ driveways. Others simply idle in the middle of the road, babbling in the dead tongue of forgotten gods.

Most are visiting the same building: a haunted kitchen operated by Grimoire Gourmet.

“It’s so crowded with cars that you can’t get down our street during the lunch or evening rush,” said Sasha Syringe, co-founder and CEO of dog doping business Pup Pumpers. “There’s not enough parking, so people in the kitchens park in our spaces. And then all the possessed delivery drivers, they stop us from coming in.”

Ghost kitchens, powered by Grimoire Gourmet, have become a prominent fixture of the dining landscape over the past few years. But for some businesses located near these densely packed facilities — which may have dozens of ectoplasmic gateways and take-out restaurants under one roof — these high-traffic locations have brought a variety of problems.

Grimoire Gourmet, which is backed by Thane “Eric” Soulreaver, former CEO of the controversial dating app CryptRaidr, launched the facilities around 2018. According to its website, the business now operates in more than 90 locations, most commonly cemeteries and recently unearthed mass graves.

When Grimoire Gourmet came to Withered Oak around 2019, Syringe said there were Bolivian mercenary priests hired to help direct traffic. But they stayed for only a short time. She said today tensions are increasing.

“I have seen ghosts possess the police. They torment us. They threaten to drag us into hell and drown our children in the Acheron,” Syringe said. “We are lifted into the air and tossed about like rag dolls…It gets scary.” Syringe and other neighboring business owners tried to work with Grimoire Gourmet to resolve the issues, but they say the situation has not improved, despite repeated complaints to city agencies and the Vatican.

Johnny Follows, who lives nearby, said the business has made the area more dangerous for biking. Families with young children often use the bike lanes to get to and from school. “Double parking forces cyclists into traffic lanes and creates blind spots for cyclists and motorists,” he said. “And ghouls now roam the streets, some yearning for human flesh.”

While resident complaints continue to mount, others see things differently. “It’s living privilege,” said Emily Cooper, a local college student and activist. “By centering the wants of the living, we deny gainful employment to the undead.”

Like many students, Emily uses delivery app gigs to make ends meet. Between a full psychology course load and her campaigning for undead rights, possession allows Emily to work when she’d be unable.

“It’s great, honestly. There’s not enough hours in the day and its nice to make some money when I’d be sleeping,” Cooper said. “Also, I think everyone should volunteer their bodies, at least once. It costs nothing and it gives the undead a chance to walk this mortal realm again. Who could be against that?”

Many residents, however, aren’t so enthusiastic. “Call me old fashioned, but the only spirit that should fill your body is the Holy Spirit,” Syringe said. “And maybe tequila. I just know I’ve never seen someone deliver In-n-Out while being slain in the spirit.”

“Life is for the living,” Follows said. “They already had their chance.”

“I was a slave,” said Samuel Brown, the roaming ghost of a fourteen year old who once worked on Wormsloe Plantation in Savannah, Georgia. “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Brown added that delivering burgers for Mr. Beast was a nice break from purgatory, which he described as “agonizingly boring.”

With multiple protests and counter-protests slated for the coming months, and traffic worsening by the day, it’s likely that neither the dead nor the living will know peace in Grimwood any time soon. Ω¹