[SamAdams76]

Fast Casual food chains are quickly overtaking the landscape.

Chipotles; Panera Breads; 5 Guys; Shake Shack; Smashburgers; and Panda Express to name a few of the bigger ones. But there are also a slew of up and comers such as Hopdoddy; Veggie Grill; Piada; Potatopia; Blaze Pizza; and Bolocos, just to name a few of those.

The category is literally exploding and could soon obliterate the existing fast-food giants like McDonalds; Burger King; KFC; and Taco Bell.

What's different about these "fast-casual" chains is that they provide a cleaner, "hipper" storefront. The quality of the food is much better. More fresh foods are used as opposed to having many food items (such as fries, burgers and chicken) processed and flash-frozen in giant warehouses where they can be stored for weeks before being shipped to the local restaurants.

The under 30-crowd feel more comfortable in these new trendy upstarts. They can lug in laptops, mobile phones and not feel out of place. You don't generally have welfare types sitting around with noisy out-of-control kids running about the place. No cages with plastic balls, no scummy tabletops and no "just-out-of-prison" type dragging a filthy mop across the floor, who always seems to be mopping the floor around you as you try to eat.

Fast casual is a nice alternative to traditional casual like Applebees; Outback; Chilis; and TGI Fridays, etc., where the waits for a table can be long and the service is often sketchy. Not to mention much more expensive and plus, you are expected to tip.

Also, these new fast-casual restaurants tend to have a trendy, upscale, upmarket feel to them, and this greatly appeals to the Gen-X and Millennial demographics, who just want to get in and get out but have a nice experience without all the waiting around.

[grania]

The thing is, as the chains get larger, they tend to become more like the established chains. Panera, for example, has some good stuff, but you really have to watch the ingredients...some of it is very commercial. Chipolte still hasn't discovered healthy bread, and I wonder how fresh some of their foods (such as the salsa) really are.

Most of the competitors...Applebee's Longhorn, RubyTuesday etc started out as healthy alternatives. Now, not so much.

[CARTOUCHE]

Panera, a woman’s club. Chipotle, a cleaner Taco Bell. I am supposing that the marks that concern themselves with whether the beef was grass fed or contains growth hormone are not those of us who hang around websites like FR. The girly man goes out of his way to fetch these items for the girls in the office. The real men park their cans at Whataburger, take care of business, and get back to work.

[peggybac]

What??? A possibility of no more Crunch Wrap Supremes??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[QT3.14]

The good 'ol days:

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

This is a great post. I'm a huge fan of these restaurants. The only real fast-food I eat is Subway, and even Subway has adopted that fast-casual atmosphere.

I only go to McDonald's for their vanilla latte coffee on payday Fridays. That stuff will wake you up faster than a defibrillation machine.

[Organic Panic]

Panda Express... REALLY!?!?!? That qualifies as food?

[Zeneta]

Within about 100 yards from where I live there is this Chicken place. I’ve lived here for nearly 7 years and not until recently have I been there. It’s a free standing location and from all appearances, it’s a dump.

The only thing was, it is ALWAYS PACKED and the smell of rotisserie “A la brasa” Chicken filled the air.

I recently broke down and thought I’d give it a try.

The Best Chicken I’ve ever had.

I don’t think there has ever been a time that I didn’t have to wait five deep in line just to order.

For $10 I get a half chicken with rice and a small salad and can easily make two meals out of it, if it weren’t soo good.

[jocon307]

Another good one is Bobby Flay’s Bobby’s Burger Palace. Very clean, fast service, good burgers and shakes. Skip the fries, get the onion rings!

[Larry Lucido]

Panera is okay, but the menu signs aren’t visible from the point of sale so if you don’t know exactly what you want, you’re doing a lot of back and forth “side-stepping” to the consternation of folks behind you.

[muir_redwoods]

Burger Fi,small chain great food and priced right.

[married21]

A lot of people don’t know how to cook and/or don’t care. That is what drives the restaurant/delivery/grocery deli business, IMHO.

I host foreign students in my home through a program that has a contract for meals. The contract says I will make a home-made meal (not a frozen entree) every night for dinner during the student’s stay (3 weeks). So, I do that, and I have fun with it. However, my students have told me that other people in their program have been served things like take out pizza and instant noodles for dinner, night after night. My most recent student says her friend was here a week before she got her first “cooked” meal from her hosts.

Some Americans won’t serve and eat a decent dinner even when they are being paid to do so!

[newnhdad]

I like this trend for the flavor and quality, but not so much for price. Panera costs us as much as a full serve, sit down place for lunch but I really like their salads. Smash is not as good as five guys and costs a little more but my wife likes the layout more. There is a place named Pei Wei ( cafe version of PF Changs) with a similar model but they have been reducing quantity and quality over the past year so we don’t go anymore. Our local Chipotles gives the hispanic people larger, more generous portions than white people so stopped going there after my complaints were ignored.

[trisham]

I’ve heard that Shake Shack is very good, but it’s new here and I think that there are only three of them here in Massachusetts. We’re nowhere near any of them.