Washington Heights is getting about 20 new restaurants all under one roof as part of Wonder’s latest opening.
Manhattan-based Wonder, which operates 56 food courts, including 21 that opened so far this year, has been growing faster than a time-lapse photograph.
Wonder opened 25 locations in 2024 and plans to open 55 more, or roughly one a week, this year to end the year with 95.
They are holding a grand opening today for their latest food court, at 3780 Broadway, in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.
The ribbon cutting is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. with Wonder gifts and samples for the first 100 guests and dancing at 5 p.m. from Fuerza Dance Studio.
The company, which opened its first location, on the Upper West Side, in February of 2023 has since acquired Grub Hub and Blue Apron and continues to raise funds and expand as it eyes going public.
Consumers in one order can choose from a wide range of foods, price points and options from a menu of restaurants, rather than dishes, through the Wonder app.
Those range from steaks for $37 at Bobby Flay Steak to a burrito bowl at Limesalt for a little more than $10.
Wonder delivers without delivery charges, because, unlike most restaurants, they own the ordering platform and the delivery company, since acquiring GrubHub.
About two-thirds of their business is delivery, with the rest being pick-up, including about 10 percent who eat in the restaurant.
The locations typically range from 2,100 to 3,000 square feet, with seats ranging from 10 in Lennox Hill to 30 in Midtown East.
“There is one kitchen,” said Jason Rusk, Executive Vice President in charge of Restaurant Operations. “A lot of people have a hard time wrapping their minds around it. How do you fit 30 restaurants in one location?”
Rusk said restaurants typically have different stations, an approach that can be extended to include different restaurant concepts.
They typically operate 20 to 30-plus “restaurants” in one location, depending on space, including partnerships with chefs like Bobby Flay and Mark Samson.
“We created menus with them to say what do we offer and prepare it as if it was made in one for their restaurants,” Rusk said.
They also partner with regional restaurants that don’t have a national footprint such as Tejas Barbecue in Texas; Maydan in Washington, D.C.; and the Barrio Café in Phoenix. And they develop their own brands in-house.
“We have great chefs on staff in our kitchens that are curating menus as well like Royal Greens,” Rusk added. “Our team of chefs helped create the lineup for that.”
The Wonder app lets you order various types of food with the order fulfilled through one delivery.
“With Door Dash or Uber Eats, you can only order from one restaurant, one cuisine type, at a time,” Rusk said. “Our Wonder app lets you order across multiple restaurants in a single delivery.”
They recently opened locations in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., while Rusk said they are focusing primarily on the Northeast, although he believes “there is an extreme demand all across the country.”
“There are more locations we are infilling. We have Manhattan pretty well covered with the exception as you head up north,” he said. “We’re infilling for Staten Island to Brooklyn and Queens.”
He said they also hope to open at least two locations in the Bronx soon along with growth outside of New York.
“Our goal is to get more locations closer to people. One of the core promises is getting food delivered to you under 30 minutes,” he said. “Hopefully, we can get it to under 25 or 20 minutes.”
Technology goes beyond their app to include operations. “The technology tells team members what to do,” he said. “That helps with consistency, flow of the kitchen and team member training.”
The own the marketplace, the ordering app, back-office system and a display system that tells the team what to do, as well as a conveyor belt. Technology aggregates orders into the right bag.
“Technology improves order accuracy, scans items into a bag,” Rusk said. “We want things better, faster, easier, less friction and cheaper.”
And they have expanded beyond food courts and restaurant delivery, buying Blue Apron, which provides another type of food delivery. “Consumers also want meal kits,” Rusk said. “Sometimes they want to make the food themselves.”
Groups no longer have to go through the time-honored ritual of picking one type of food.
“Here you can get it all. Everyone can get what they want,” Rusk said. “Everyone has asked is it singles or families? Family is what it is to the person, extended or friended.”
Wonder partners with City Harvest as their “round up partner” where customers can round up their change to the next whole dollar to support the organization.
And they support Cloth, a local organization that has serviced Washington Heights for 70 years through City Harvest. Wonder will be donating a portion of grand opening week sales to Cloth.
The company recently piloted Nami Nori, a sushi concept, and added SriPhaiPai and Kin House, Thai and Chinese restaurants, to expand options.
“We’re looking at concepts for ice cream , Indian, as well as some others,” Rusk said of a business that is seeking to turn into a moveable feast in and far beyond New York City.
