You don't even have to look to the big chains or into the future to see this principle in action - in NYC, Seamless/Grubhub/etc have created a whole industry of commissary kitchens operating multiple "restaurants" out of an anonymous, shared prep space, doing all of their business by delivery. I'm sure its probably the same in other similar markets.

(The idea isn't really new, either... even pre-internet, the thousands of food carts and trucks around the city got most of their supplies from shared commissary kitchens who do some degree of prep and cooking far away from where the cart will eventually operate).

We're just watching TechCrunch writers and the investors they write about discover commissary kitchens together.