I'm STILL working on the Molecular Gastronomy series. I know, it's been a few months. But I really want to do those articles justice, and my research is taking wayyyy longer than I thought it would. Here's something else to tide you over.
Recently, I read about a new local restaurant called Wichit, a sandwich shop that operates in the same assembly line style fashion as Chipotle. I still haven't been to Wichit, but in the process of reading some reviews of the restaurant I stumbled across some interesting articles about a recent sea change in the casual dining and fast food restaurant businesses. A new mutant strain of restaurant that industry analysts are calling "fast casual" dining, restaurants that fall somewhere between fast food and sit down restaurants, have slowly become a standard for mid-priced dining in America. I guess I had been aware that this was happening to some extent, but at least now I know what to call these restaurants. Chipotle and Qdoba, Panera, Five Guys and In N Out Burger all fall under the fast casual label, offering meals in the 10-15 dollar range for people who want "fast" food but don't feel like slumming it at Taco Bell or Wendy's.
All of these restaurants share a few important elements of business philosophy:
-They don't run a drive through window.
-Their dining spaces are fairly spartan, with little or no TGIF style street signs or nicknack crap up on the walls.
-They place an emphasis on the quality of their ingredients, and often document their business procedures and nutritional information for the consumer more extensively than other chain restaurants.
-They tend to use lower profile marketing techniques and rely on word of mouth to hype their business rather than engage in overt advertisement like billboards or television commercials.
-And finally, they pay their employees more generously than other food service positions, but demand a higher standard of excellence from them, requiring very strict adherence to food preparation, cleaning, and customer interaction policies.
Not bad ideas, really. And the food these places are slinging is uniformly better than typical microwaved or deep fried fast food; if you don't like eating Chipotle burritos, there may be something gravely wrong with you physically or psychologically. However, on closer examination, I began to feel that there was something vaguely ominous about fast casual. From a consumer perspective, the emergence of fast casual represents a windfall, but from the perspective of a small business owner it's just plain scary.
The business principles I listed above probably appeal to you because they've been staples of small restaurants all over the country, proto-fast casual businesses. You know, your local deli, taqueria, burger joint, etc. Now, corporate fast casual options have begun to erode the consumer base of all those local restaurants, and it's getting harder and harder to open a new independent restaurant in competition with fast casual chains. At the same time, some small businesses are mimicking the slick presentation of corporate fast casual to their own ends; Wichit, the sandwich place I mentioned earlier, is a good example of this phenomenon. They're not a chain, and unless they're a test restaurant for a corporate interest (which I doubt) they're a new small business that's competing with corporate chains using their own tactics and aesthetics. And it seems to be working for them. If you look at their website or read this blurb about their business philosophy you'll see what I mean.
So it's a good thing, and a bad thing at the same time. One of those...what do you call it? Dilemmas. Who knows what the long term implications of this trend will have on the restaurant business? Not me, at least as of now. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Here's a few articles I thought were helpful.
Franchise Times
New York Times
CCIM Institute
QSR
Wikipedia
That's a pretty good point about these fast-casual chains being a potentially bigger threat to individual similar places.
ReplyDeleteUnrelated: you should do more of this Bookspam stuff. I'm not crazy about restaurant articles mostly because I'm hostile to the whole "foodie" trend. How can you identify yourself as a foodie and expect that that sets you apart? Who DOESN'T like good food??
But yeah. More books. I can throw tons of fodder your way, if you like.
I have more literature posts going up soon, glad you like 'em. The Raw Shark Texts was essentially a rec from you by way of Duncan (great book, too), so if you've got any other hidden gems like that hit me up with an e-mail.
ReplyDeleteFast casual places are taking DC by storm. There are several opening up in my neighborhood alone. Although I have mixed feelings about them, as far as I can tell downtown DC already has very few small business restaurants. Once these places start taking over the heartland, though, I think we will see your prediction bear itself out.
ReplyDeleteThe pace in DC certainly lends itself to fast casual more readily than other cities, so that makes sense. I do worry about the heartland though. Is nothing sacred, America?
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