VOA慢速英语2019 越来越多的美国餐厅取消用餐区（在线收听）

More US Restaurants Remove Dining Areas

Dining rooms are disappearing from restaurants in the United States,as Americans increasingly use apps to order food.

随着美国人越来越多地使用app(应用程序)订餐，美国餐厅内的用餐区正在消失。 

One example is the new Chopt Creative Salad Company restaurant,which opened last week in New York City.It is unlike any of the companys other 61 restaurants.It has no cash registers or dining tables.

以Chopt 创意沙拉公司新开张的一家餐厅为例，该餐厅于上周在纽约市开业。与该公司的其他61家餐厅不同，这家餐厅没有收银机或餐桌。

Atlanta-based restaurant Chick-fil-A has similar locations in two cities: Nashville,Tennessee and Louisville, Kentucky.Customers order and prepay online. They can either go to the store for their meal or have it sent to them.

总部位于亚特兰大的Chick-fil-A餐厅在两个城市的位置相似，分别位于田纳西州的纳什维尔和肯塔基州的路易斯维尔。消费者在线下单并在网上预付。他们可以去餐厅用餐或选择送餐。

Chick-fil-A is also trying something different.The company has announced plans to set up three "delivery kitchens."In all three,Chick-fil-A will share space with other restaurants to prepare food for delivery only.

Chick-fil-A也在尝试些不一样的东西。该公司宣布计划建立三个“外卖厨房”。在这三个厨房中，Chick-fil-A将与其他餐厅共享空间，只准备外卖食物。

Digital orders are a major growth area for fast-food and fast-casual restaurant chains.More are turning to these dark, or ghost,kitchens to cut costs.

线上订单成为快餐和舒食连锁店的主要增长领域。为降低成本，越来越多的餐厅转向这些所谓的“黑暗或幽灵厨房”。

Wendys, another fast-food business,announced last month that it aimed to open two "dark kitchens"by the end of the year.

另一家快餐企业Wendy’s上个月宣布，其目标是在今年年底前开设两家“黑暗厨房”。 

Some food delivery-only operations in New York and San Francisco have failed in recent years.

近年来，纽约和旧金山一些仅做食品外卖的业务均以失败告终。 

But in January,Travis Kalanicks CloudKitchens got a $400 million investment from Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund, Reuters reported.Kalanick is a co-founder of ride service Uber.The Wall Street Journal first reported the investment earlier this month.

但据路透社报道，（今年）1月，特拉维斯·卡兰尼克的“云厨房”从沙特阿拉伯的主权财富基金获得了4亿美元的投资。卡兰尼克是Uber（优步）乘车服务公司的联合创始人。《华尔街日报》本月初首次报道了这笔投资。

CloudKitchens, founded in 2016,builds shared food preparation areas for delivery-only restaurants to rent.

“云厨房”成立于2016年，对仅提供外卖的餐厅出租可以共享的食品准备区。 

Julie Atkinson is the Chief Marketing Officer for Chopt.She says the company offered pick-up and delivery orders soon after it opened 18 years ago.Today those orders make up nearly half of its business at larger restaurants, she said.

朱莉·阿特金森是Chopt的首席营销官。她表示，该公司在18年前开业后没多久就开始提供取货和送货服务。如今，这些订单占据了其大型餐厅业务的近一半。

"We are sensing a really huge customer need for speed, for convenience," she said."Were hopeful that this concept really raises the bar on customer convenience."

她说：“我们意识到顾客对速度和便利性的需求非常大。我们希望这个概念能真正方便顾客。” 

On November 5,coffee house Starbucks opened its first Starbucks pickup store in the United States for online orders.The new store is similar to some new Starbucks stores in China, where digital ordering is more common.

11月5日，星巴克咖啡厅在美国开设了其第一家可以在线下单店内取货的店铺。新店与中国新开业的一些星巴克店类似。在中国，线上订餐更为普遍。