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From two blocks away, REEF Technology’s “ghost kitchens” appear through a maze of palm trees like a technicolor aluminum herd, sleepily huddled in a parking lot next to a Metromover overpass at the apex of two of Coconut Grove’s busier streets.
Yet, as you get closer, a buzzing hive of tourists, foodies, picnic tables, bougainvillea planters, and UberEats and GrubHub scooters coming and going somehow miraculously have brought this formerly vacant asphalt polygon back to life.
REEF, whose headquarters is a few miles away in downtown Brickell, calls what I’m standing in the middle of “proximity as a platform”. And if Miami’s current political class has anything to do with it, the start-up’s pandemically turbo-charged, on-demand logistics model could shape a new national template for smart, sustainable cities and the future of everything from restaurants to retail to healthcare delivery forever.
It could also keep tipping America’s innovation power balance geographically from Silicon Valley to South Florida for years to come.
