Top Fort Worth Chef Embraces Ghost Kitchens, Putting Three of Them Under One Roof

Lanny Lancarte, one of Fort Worth’s most notable chefs, is going all in on ghost kitchens. The owner of local favorite Righteous Foods was born in the restaurant industry (if the last name sounds familiar, it’s because Lancarte is part of the Joe T. Garcia family). You could say he knows his way around the kitchen as a fourth generation restaurateur.

And it’s clear he thinks the future of the kitchen just might be ghosts.

Lancarte put his culinary training to good use when he opened his Lanny’s Alta Cocina at 3405 West 7th Street many years ago. That fine dining restaurant gave way to his current passion, Righteous Foods. This clean living restaurant — which Lancarte opened in 2014 ― puts a creative touch on health conscious food.

During the early days of the COVID shutdowns, Lancarte launched his first ghost kitchen ― Eat Fajitas. The chef considers it a big success. So Lancarte is expanding operations and creating two new ghost kitchens.

Lancarte’s new Fantasma Kitchens is set to open on the North Side in a converted old church in September. It will be the home of three ghost kitchen concepts, including Eat Fajitas, which is now moving operations out of Righteous Foods’ kitchen. There will also be an al carbon style chicken concept called El Pollo Tocayo and an Italian concept called Pizza Zapasta. Pizza Zapasta will have house-made pastas, handmade pizzas and salads.

Ghost kitchens are restaurants without any dining space. You get the food for takeout or delivery. Fantasma means ghost in Spanish.

The new Fantasma Kitchens will also offer various hand-crafted pre-mixed cocktails thanks to the new law making to-go drinks (one of the only good things to come out of 2020) a permanent thing.

“Last year taught us that delivery and to-go are here to stay,” Lancarte says in a statement. “We are looking to elevate that experience using our fine dining background and making high quality food more accessible to Fort Worth from our headquarters on the North Side.

“All offerings from Eat Fajitas, El Pollo Tocayo and Pizza Zapasta will only be available for pickup, curbside or through their self-delivery, which will service select neighborhoods in Fort Worth and be hand-delivered by the staff to ensure all meals will be served fresh. To avoid the use of third-party apps, orders can be placed on the three brands’ unique websites as well as through their new user-friendly apps.”

More ghost kitchens and additional delivery models only make dining more fun and convenient. Lanny Lancarte is certainly a believer.