Following in the footsteps of fast casuals branching out into the pizzeria territory, Subway plans to open Subway Pizza Express at University of Nebraska-Lincoln in early 2014. The concept focuses on customizable, made-to-order personal pizzas. Pricing will be similar to Subway’s, falling in the $4-6 range per pizza.
Fine Dining Chefs Joining the Fast Casual Market
December 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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.
Employer Restaurant Infographic
December 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Fast Casual surveyed restaurants’ employers to gain insights on their hourly employees and hiring demands. The eye-opening infographic is derived from over 600 responses from owners, operators and managers with restaurant locations ranging from one to 15,000.
Umami Burger Founders Introduce “Build-Your-Own” Pizza
December 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In last week’s Enterprise Insight we discussed the benefits of assembly lines. On that note, the LA-based restaurant group that founded Umami burger announced their newest project 800 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria, making its way to New York in the near future. The model will be a “build-your-own” assembly-line-style fast-casual restaurant serving $5-$7 pizzas. The minds behind Umami burger know how to cater to customers’ fast-paced schedules; each pizza only take 1 minute to cook.
Business Meals: Are Fast Casuals in Jeopardy?
December 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
As of October, both the frequency and the check average of business meals has increased. Casual and Fine Dining restaurants have become the targets of diners eating out for business-related meals, according to a survey by Consumer Edge Insight.
David Decker, president of Consumer Edge Insight remarked, “A higher-spending business meal customer is a very welcome development for the high-end but also the middle tier of the restaurant industry. For fine-dining restaurants, one of their core customer segments is starting to visit restaurants more often and is more likely to be trading up to fine-dining than a year ago. While this is a smaller customer segment for most casual-dining restaurants in terms of traffic, the higher average spending among this group makes them an important segment to understand and target as much as possible given your brand.”
So what does this mean for limited-service concepts?
Limited-service restaurants wanting to target business diners should seek ways to overcome obstacles to being perceived as less desireable for business-meal occasions. One idea is to promote catering.
Advantages of an Aging Workforce
November 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Not too long ago, high-school aged employees reigned the fast-casual world. It was one of the only realms that would accept those with very little to no work experience and offered the flexibility to work around their school schedules. Presently, the average age of fast-casual employees is twenty-seven, and there’s notable advantages to hiring more senior staff. Sometimes education is directly correlated with age, and having more life experience and a work background can lead employees to the management track quickly and portend longevity in the company. High turnover is inevitable with teenagers; pay is low and once their financial needs are met for the short term, there’s often little incentive to stay. It pays off to pay more upfront to train employees with higher education and work backgrounds, who usually happen to be older, as opposed to frequently hiring much younger staff and enduring constant turnovers. One of the disadvantages of hiring older employees is the pressure to meet their expectations for higher pay.
Fast Casual Restaurants Face Pressure Post-Recession
November 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The fast casual industry is one of the most successful sectors in the entire restaurant industry, however it’s facing subtle pressure as the economy has bounced back from the recession. Now that consumers have more disposable income, their options have broadened, bringing more appeal to the regular outing at casual and fine dining restaurants. The majority of consumers are “smart spenders” and will continue to apply their savvy spending and saving skills they picked up during the economic downturn. High quality service and value will be the main attractors to maintaining a loyal consumer base amongst fast casual restaurants and overcoming the post-recession pressure.
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