Fine Dining Chefs Joining the Fast Casual Market

Over the past decade, some of the most experienced chefs, who under typical circumstances would only work in fine dining establishments, have expanded their interests to the fast casual sector. Take Chef Bradford Kent, for example. The CIA grad opened Olio Pizzeria & Cafe in Los Angeles, a wood-fired pizza enterprise; however, the thought of serving high-quality pizza to the fortunate few who could afford it did not appeal to him. This triggered Kent to help launch Blaze Pizza, a fast-casual franchise that serves customizable pizzas in two minutes for less than $8. Blaze Pizza is an example of just one of several chef-driven fast-casual concepts to influence the restaurant industry.

Kent claims, “Every chef wants to make a difference and wants people to eat well. There’s nothing cooler for a chef than seeing tens of thousands of people eating their food and blogging about it. It’s way more exciting than making 30 plates per night. This is more important, and most chefs want to be a part of something like that.”

Darren Tristano of Technomic, the leading food-industry research and consulting firm, offers his theory behind the trend, “The reason chefs are going into fast casual is very simple. Opening full-service restaurants is too risky. Fast casual allows chefs the latitude to create better-quality food in an environment convenient to customers and less risky and costly than an upscale restaurant.”

As for franchising, “But while more chefs are making the leap into fast casual, only a few are dipping their toes into franchising. “I think the reason many of them don’t franchise is because they have the finances to grow their businesses independently,” according to Tristano. “They want to keep control over the quality and service. Those are very important to chefs.”

To learn more, visit the original Entrepreneur article.