Nothing has had a larger impact on American dining in the past decade than fast-casual or counter-service restaurants. They changed the way people ate, how ingredients were sourced at chain restaurants and forced competition to adapt quickly, The Washington Post reports.
In 2009, there were about 17,300 fast-casual restaurants in the U.S. with sales of $19 billion, according to the market research firm Technomic. By 2018, the last year for which statistics are available, fast-casuals had more than doubled their locations (34,800) and sales ($47.5 billion).
Yet, the numbers alone don’t begin to explain the influence that fast-casuals had over the past 10 years.
Fast-casuals put the diner in charge, rather than the chef, at many establishments by building customization into the business model by having customers walk down lines to design their own burritos, rice bowls, pizzas or whatever other dish served as the focal point of the concept. They also split the difference between chef-driven restaurants and multinational fast-food outlets.
The popularity of fast-casuals did not go unnoticed by casual-dining or fast-food chains. They responded by cleaning up their ingredients, introducing more healthy options, adopting new technologies and sometimes even moving into the fast-casual category themselves. Read the full story here.
