Last month chef Joshua Skenes, of San Francisco's Saison, announced he was partnering with Umami Burger restaurateur Adam Fleischman to launch a fast-casual Chinese noodle concept. In stark contrast to Skenes' multi-course, $248 menu at Saison, guests at his restaurant chain Fat Noodle will soon be able to eat a two Michelin-starred chef's recipes for between $6-10 per bowl.
2014 has seen several fine-dining chefs eying that style of dining. Earlier this year, chef/restaurateur José Andrés told Vanity Fair he was looking to get into the fast-casual market. In late August, Michelin-starred chef Daniel Patterson (of San Francisco's Coi) announced he'd joined forces with Los Angeles street food king Roy Choi (Kogi, Chego) to launch a fast-food concept called Loco'l, with the intention of creating the world's best 99-cent hamburger. And just last week, NYC chef Chris Jaeckle (currently of All'onda) opened a quick-service Japanese hand roll restaurant in Manhattan.
Joshua Skenes, José Andrés, Daniel Patterson, Roy Choi and Chris Jaeckle are all getting into the fast-casual market.
Chefs moving into the fast-casual space is obviously nothing new. The expansion-happy Wolfgang Puck launched his chain Wolfgang Puck Express back in 1991, before the term "fast-casual" had even entered the culinary lexicon. In 2003, Tom Colicchio parlayed his New York City restaurant Craft into the sandwich-focused 'wichcraft (it now has 16 locations). Bobby Flay launched his hamburger chain Bobby's Burger Palace in 2008 (now with 17 locations worldwide). Chicago chef Rick Bayless has been in the fast-casual game for awhile now, with two concepts: airport sandwich favorite Tortas Frontera and Macy's collaboration Frontera Fresco.
And in 2004, NYC restaurateur Danny Meyer — then best known for fine-dining spots including Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern — launched hamburger stand Shake Shack, arguably the fast-casual model many chefs are chasing. Shake Shack, which currently has 56 locations worldwide, applies many fine-dining tenets to its approach, using locally sourced products and customizing menus based on the restaurant location. While Gramercy Tavern's "secret off-the-menu" hamburger costs $16, burgers at Shake Shack can be had for $4.95.
Fleischman says the fine-dining approach to fast-casual has flurried "probably within the past couple years." But he warns that not all Michelin-starred or James Beard Award-winning chefs can make the transition. "The tricky thing is that just because you're a name chef, [it] doesn't translate into being a fast-casual person," he says. "Danny Meyer did it, but he wasn't a chef. José Andrés is doing it now, which is a good sign of a fine-dining chef doing something completely new, rather than saying, 'I'm José, and anything I open will be great.' He's putting a lot of thought into it and creating a whole new concept that he's rolling out. It takes a lot of work."
FEEDING THE MARKET:
Chef-driven fast-casual concepts are also fueled by the dining sector's admirable growth. This summer, Forbes reported that sales at fast-casual restaurants grew 11 percent in 2013, with total sales, according to National Restaurant Association data, of $173.8 billion. Panera Bread, the largest fast-casual brand at 1,658 locations, raked in $4 billion in 2013. Chipotle's numbers in 2013 totaled $3.19 billion spread across its 1,570 units, and the first half of 2014 saw the chain take in $1.95 billion, which a shareholder report excitedly pointed out was "up 26.6% from the prior year period." For Chipotle in particular, Forbes wrote, "revenue growth has consistently been around 20 percent... for five years now."
"We need to be [better at] influencing how to feed the many." — José Andrés
Many of those dollars are flocking to the fast-casual market at the expense of fast-food restaurants, which have reported sales declines of late. (Notably, fast-food giant McDonald's reported lower-than-expected sales by mid-2014.) In his interview with Vanity Fair, Andrés — the chef behind high-end concepts like Washington DC's minibar — explicitly named Chipotle founder Steve Ells as the inspiration for his new venture, arguing that given traditional fast-food outlets' negative affects on consumer health, chef-driven concepts could pull diners toward healthier, more responsibly produced food. "Ells is a great chef that created a great fast-food restaurant," Andrés said. "Behind Chipotle is not a corporation, behind Chipotle is a man that is one of the great cooks, that created a great concept." By June, Andrés was referring to his casual vegetable-focused concept as "fast good" (a play on "fast food"), with his ThinkFoodGroup vice chairman saying they would aim for "Jose-quality food" at a price point of under $10 per meal. "I've been saying for a while that more and more chefs, we need to be [better at] influencing how to feed the many," Andrés emphasized.
Chris Jaeckle, who was primarily known for his Italian cooking before launching the fast-casual Uma Temakeria last week, also mentioned accessibility as a driving force. In an interview with Grub Street, Jaeckle said his foray into Japanese hand rolls came after realizing that "pasta is accessible in America, and I didn't see anyone doing good sushi at a low price point." Uma's rolls average about $6 each, with sides priced at $3.50, hitting the magical under-$10 mark universally deemed "accessible" by fast-casual operators.
"It's about creating the new vision for food in America," Fleischman says of Fat Noodle."It's a good platform: People want Josh's food for 10 bucks." Like other brands in the fast-casual restaurant market, the Fat Noodle model will offer a streamlined menu and the option for guests to customize their meals in an assembly line-style counter. Each made-to-order noodle dish will ideally cost under 10 dollars per customer; for comparison, the average check at Chipotle hovers in the $9 range.
According to Fleischman, that price point, coupled with a new, "differentiated" concept, is what his culinary incubator at AdVantage hopes to bring to the fast-casual market. "[Customers] don't want to go and spend $100 a night, and they don't want to spend 10 dollars and get the same boring Chinese food," he says of Skenes' take on noodles. "They want something exciting; they want it all. We're trying to look at that."
FEEDING CHEF'S APPETITES:
To a chef known for his or her fine-dining pedigree, launching a fast-casual concept might simply give them an opportunity to cook other food they love. Jaeckle told Grub Street that along with pasta, which he makes daily as a fine-dining chef, his go-to comfort food is sushi. When announcing the Fat Noodle concept, Skenes told the San Francisco Chronicle the project was fueled by his own personal urge to "eat good hand-pulled noodles. That's all."
According to Fleischman — who says he's approached by chefs seeking business opportunities at least once a week — that passion is what leads to a successful partnership. "How I feel about the chef is really the first thing," he says. "Just having Joshua involved — to me, he's the best of the best. He's really driving food in the U.S. with Saison: Everyone's following him, every chef is obsessed with what he's doing."
Bayless agrees that launching a fast-casual concept allows chefs to "flex a different muscle in the kitchen." "Nobody wants to eat fine-dining all the time," Bayless tells Eater via email from Mexico. "Not even fine-dining chefs. Perhaps especially not fine-dining chefs."
"Nobody wants to eat fine-dining all the time. Not even fine-dining chefs." — Rick Bayless
For Seattle chef Ethan Stowell, the challenge of creating a fast-casual menu appeals to instincts outside the kitchen entirely. Stowell operates nine Seattle restaurants in his eponymous group, plus the fast-casual Ballard Pizza Company, which debuted in 2012. "I love the creative aspect of cooking. I love the physical work of it… I enjoy all the aspects, but I also enjoy figuring out the puzzles of a business," he says. "I think that sometimes as a chef you get kind of pigeonholed into just being a chef, and there are a lot of chefs out there who are chefs and businessmen at the same time. That's why I did it, because I like the business aspect of it. I like the model. I like the idea of potentially multiplying it out and growing that business."
Chefs with that puzzle-solving mentality tend to grow their concepts slowly and organically. In Chicago, Bayless carefully considers invitations to expand his Tortas Fronteras brand. "We get approached all the time to open new Tortas, and that's very flattering," he says. "But we usually say no because our hands are full. We prefer to work on one project at a time, because each opening requires a lot of time, a lot of attention, a lot of energy. In a year or two, when our current projects are open and running, we may look at opening another Tortas or Xoco. Maybe."
"I don't think they're much different than running higher-end places. The goals are still the same." — Ethan Stowell
When Ballard Pizza Company debuted two years ago, Stowell's group announced the launch of Grub Brothers Productions, which planned to exclusively work on other fast-casual brands (including a fried chicken concept and sandwich shop). But in the ensuing years, Ballard Pizza Co. has remained the only fast-casual notch in Stowell's belt. His newish fish-and-chip shop Chippy's was originally conceived as a fast-casual concept, but eventually became a full-service restaurant after Stowell was unsatisfied with the quality of fish available at the lower price point. "The core values of the business should be constant location to location [within our restaurant group], regardless of the price point or what the customers get," Stowell says. "Good customer service and good value [should be] the same whether you're spending 600 bucks or six bucks."
According to Stowell, that's where the fine-dining sensibility can make the biggest impact on a fast-casual restaurant: The chef's approach to product and the guest's experience. "I don't think they are much different than running higher-end places," he says of the fast-casual market. "The goals are still the same. The goals are have somebody come in to have a good time, try to offer them good value for what they get. Treat them with respect, they treat you with respect, and everybody leaves happy with the transaction."
From within his culinary incubator AdVantage, Fleischman combines those fine-dining ideals with what he sees as the key to success. "What are the components that will make [a fast-casual concept] successful?" Fleischman asks. "Obviously, great food, great space, great price point, great category in concept, and product differentiation; those are the things I work on." Whether or not Fat Noodle or Andrés' as-yet-unnamed concept become the next Shake Shack remains to be seen, although the founders of each have expansion — the idea of "feeding the many" — in mind. Five years from now, Fleischman says of Fat Noodle, "we'd like to be in around 15 to 20 locations, nationwide."