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A Hot New Trend In Dining


DonRocks

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"The Chipotle Effect: Why America Is Obsessed With Fast-Casual Food" by Roberto A. Ferdman on washingtonpost.com

"It's all very confusing, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, an industry research firm. "The truth is that no one really has the right answer."

Response:

"Fast-Casual is when you walk up to a line of steam-tables containing pre-cooked and/or pre-chopped food items, order a combination from a menu on the wall, and then a team member or members will assemble your order by the time you get to the register, often heating a starchy container along the way," says Don Rockwell, President of donrockwell.com. "It's really quite a simple concept, and was actually pioneered by Subway, not Chipotle - the difference being that Subway uses cold cuts, and Chipotle uses meats that have been cooked earlier in the day."

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Speaking of the cafeteria, it occurs to me that I posted something apposite in the "Music" forum about Lee Wiley the other day. She wonderfully sings "Manhattan" by Rodgers and Hart, their first real hit song from 1925, which includes the lines

We'll go to Yonkers

Where true love conquers

In the wilds,

And starve together dear

In Childs'....

Childs' (first restaurant 1889, talk about hot and new!) was very much a pioneer of the "fast casual" dining concept, which you can read about in this Wikipedia article. You can read about the history of Childs' restaurants in Washington on the excellent "Streets of Washington" website here. The striking, roughly trapezoidal building at the confluence of F and North Capitol Streets and Massachusetts Ave. NW, near Union Station, which now houses a Sun Trust branch, is all that remains of Childs' in Washington.

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Wasn't it pioneered by the cafeteria, long, long ago?

Sounds right to me if steam tables are a key component. Military mess halls and cafeterias. Schools and other institutions. That said, I've never thought a steam table was a default component for the category.

Something like this is what I've always associated with the term.

"A fast-casual restaurant is a type of restaurant that does not offer full table service, but promises a higher quality of food with fewer frozen or processed ingredients than a fast-food restaurant."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_casual_restaurant

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But isn't quick-serve lunch a lot different from frozen yogurt?  As an example, you have to eat lunch 7 times a week, generally.  How many times a week, month, or year do you eat frozen yogurt?

I think the quick-serve model is based upon the local economy.  Frozen yogurt is a whole other thing.

Oh, totally. I changed subjects abruptly. :) I was just brainstorming and could be completely wrong - who knows, if fast food is on its way out, *something* needs to replace it. Maybe the quick-serve market is only 10% saturated. I think the biggest upside right now is in sous-vide (which is not incompatible at all with quick-serve). Yes, it's crap, but it's still better than fast food, and in many cases, a lot better.

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I have a question for people in the industry: Do you prefer "Quick-Serve" or "Fast-Casual" as a descriptor? Is there any difference at all between the two? I know there are entire lobbying groups and expensive journals dedicated to this mega-concept, so I suspect within the industry, there's probably a distinction - if so, then what is it? And is there a difference between what you call yourselves internally, and what you call yourselves in the public eye?

We have a gazillion of these restaurants in DC, and I've been using the tags interchangeably - it would be nice to make them all the same, if that's accurate, and if it's not accurate, it would be nice to divvy them up correctly.

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