The business is still in stealth mode, but there’s nothing covert about Marc Lore’s latest venture for residents of Westfield, New Jersey.
Its purple and black vans congregate in the parking lot of a shuttered Lord & Taylor department store and line up across the street from a Stop & Shop supermarket. Generators hum as the vans wait to head out into the surrounding neighborhood to prepare freshly cooked meals.
After departing Walmart at the end of January, the serial entrepreneur has joined his brother, Chad Lore, to invest in Wonder, a business that is part food truck, part ghost kitchen, CNBC has learned.
Scott Hilton, a longtime colleague of Marc Lore’s and former chief revenue officer of Walmart’s e-commerce business, is Wonder’s chief executive, a person familiar with the investment said. Chad Lore also holds a top role, while Marc is serving in an advisory capacity, said the person, who requested anonymity since the business is still in an early stage.
Marc Lore, 49, is most known for creating innovative e-commerce businesses and selling them to corporate giants like Amazon and Walmart.
He helped found Quidsi, the parent of Diapers.com, and sold it to Amazon for $545 million in 2010. Six years later, Walmart paid $3 billion to acquire his next venture, Jet.com. Lore stayed on for four years, helping Walmart by overseeing its e-commerce division and accelerating the big-box retailer’s growth.
‘A kitchen that comes to you’
On its app, Wonder pitches itself as a “new home dining experience with a kitchen that comes to you.”
It is being piloted in the northern part of Westfield, an affluent suburb that is home to many New York City transplants. Residents often move to the close-knit town in order to trade a cramped apartment for a spacious home to raise a family. Yet it’s likely that these families haven’t lost their craving for the fine dining options that are a convenient perk of city life.
That’s the need Wonder is trying to fill. Its vans are outfitted with mobile kitchens, and a trained chef travels on each truck, ingredients in tow, to finish off meals once the vehicle arrives at each house.
Source: Lauren Thomas
Wonder’s goal is to deliver food that’s still piping hot when it reaches the front door. It tackles the pitfalls of takeout like limp french fries. And its salads aren’t soggy, since the vegetables were only tossed in the dressing moments before.
Jay Zuckerman, a 47-year-old father of two who resides with his wife in the pilot area, said his family has used Wonder about six or seven times for dinner over the past few months.
Each time, Wonder’s chefs have placed the meal on a foldable tray table at their door, packaged in more elegant containers than one would typically receive from a delivery elsewhere.
“I thought it was such a different experience, and the timing could not have been more appropriate and needed during Covid,” said Zuckerman, a fashion industry executive. “It was like ordering from a gourmet restaurant, but you don’t have the issues of waiting, and you don’t have the issues of the food not tasting good because of transportation. It was a very high-end experience.”
And it’s priced, accordingly. A dinner for four might be upwards of $100, he said.
Wonder is sourcing its menus from top restaurants headed by celebrity chefs from across the country. The company has partnered with these businesses to re-create their menus and license their restaurant concepts, according to the person familiar with how the business works.
Offerings include Bobby Flay Steak, The Mainstay by Marc Murphy, Frankies Spuntino, JBird by Jonathan Waxman, Fred’s Meat & Bread, and Tejas Barbecue, with such options as wood-fired pizzas, handmade pastas, New York strip and rib-eye steaks, and build-your-own family taco bar.
Wonder serves meals from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday to Wednesday; and from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, according to its app.
