{"id":147920,"date":"2026-03-25T11:20:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/147920\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T11:20:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:20:48","slug":"ghost-kitchen-brings-lehigh-valley-chefs-to-lehigh-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/147920\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost kitchen brings Lehigh Valley chefs to Lehigh University"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new \u201cghost kitchen\u201d at Lehigh University will feature tasty dishes and spread the word for Lehigh Valley businesses to students, staff and the larger university community.<\/p>\n

Clayton\u2019s Kitchen launched Monday on the first floor of the Clayton University Center, said Erin Foertsch, the marketing manager for Lehigh University Dining Services. Anyone with a Lehigh University email, including students, staff, faculty and alumni, can order from the kitchen during chefs\u2019 temporary residencies, which usually will be one or two weeks.<\/p>\n

Following a test run that began in September with in-house dishes, the program kicked off this week with Kou Kitchen<\/a>, a catering company that services African dishes like fish fillet, glazed peanut chicken, peanut butter pork chops, vegetable soup, sweet fried plantains and honey cornbread.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means a lot to us, in that we are based in [the] Lehigh Valley to begin with, and then when we got the invite to be a part of the ghost kitchen for Lehigh University, that was exciting to us,\u201d co-owner and executive chef Kou Taylor said. \u201cBecause this has been our goal, to be able to share our food with the entire Lehigh Valley. So then coming here at \u2026 Lehigh University, that just puts us ahead of it, where we\u2019re just happy people are about to enjoy the food. And plus we live here, we\u2019re part of the community, so we\u2019re happy to share what we have and to give to the community as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have gotten some good feedback already, so that\u2019s good to know,\u201d co-owner Myles Taylor said.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Bentzi Finegold called the chicken with rice and plantains he ordered \u201cincredible\u201d and \u201cfantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great to have rotating opportunities here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kou Kitchen will be open to the Lehigh University community 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Friday. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Ghost kitchen offers convenience, versatility<\/p>\n

Foertsch said to get food from Clayton\u2019s Kitchen, a customer orders through Grubhub and then uses a QR code to open adjacent lockers that hold the food. Students can use their meal plan and dining dollars for the orders.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring their busy schedules, instead of running downtown to a restaurant, they could come right here and enjoy it and not lose that time,\u201d said Chris Wallace, Lehigh University Dining Services general manager.<\/p>\n

Foertsch said that during the planning of renovations for the Clayton University Center, which reopened last year, \u201cthe ghost kitchen idea came up as a way to add variety and something different and just be more versatile to time of year or what the students are looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clayton\u2019s Kitchen joins eight other food concepts at the center, including the Lehigh University Pub<\/a> that opened last year. Foertsch said the kitchen will operate for the rest of the spring, close for the summer and then reopen for the fall, when the center plans to have a tenant present every week and for longer residencies.<\/p>\n

Mike Gronczewski, executive chef for the Clayton University Center, said the ghost kitchen gives a chance to international students in particular to enjoy foods beyond typical American cuisine.<\/p>\n

Marayna Dorsey, the sustainability coordinator for Lehigh University Dining Services, said the kitchen also plays a role in social sustainability, by\u00a0\u201cbuilding a community within not only the Lehigh campus, but in the broader Bethlehem and Lehigh Valley area\u201d and \u201cencouraging those students to go to those local businesses and play into the local economy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new \u201cghost kitchen\u201d at Lehigh University will feature tasty dishes and spread the word for Lehigh Valley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,60,182,435,436,289,432],"class_list":["post-147920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-business","tag-local-news","tag-restaurants-food-and-drink","tag-retail","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}