[CH] Hot Trend in Fast Food
The Old Bear (oldbear@arctos.com)
Sun, 09 Aug 1998 18:20:26 -0400
Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal's "Business Bulletin"
column of August 6, 1998:
| BEYOND BAGELS: The newest fast-food boom is in
| upgraded Mexican fare.
|
| Although it commands more than 80% of the U.S. market for
| quick-service Mexican meals, the Taco Bell chain faces a
| growing number of Mexican-food upstarts. The latter, totaling at
| least 10, are mounting the biggest fast-food boom since bagels,
| says John M. Hamburger, a restaurant-finance specialist in
| Minneapolis. The upstarts' fare is fancier, often fresher -- and
| pricier. Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., which recently
| won McDonald's Corp. as an investor, offers $4.65 burritos, a far
| cry from Taco Bell's 99-cent gorditas.
|
| Una Mas Restaurants Inc., with 44 units, vows to open 40 more
| by the end of 1999, assuming a deft entry into franchising.
| Richard T. Hamner, president of the Mountain View, Calif.,
| company, notes "an intense amount of competition and
| expansion" in the niche. In San Antonio, Texas, Taco Cabana
| Inc., which supervises 111 units, plans to add 15 by year-end
| 1999.
|
| What, me worry? Taco Bell, overseen by Tricon Global
| Restaurants Inc., says it focuses on fighting the hamburger
| heavies.
It's going to take a few years, but it looks like the US love
affair with burritos is on the same track as the salsa/catsup sales
curves where salsa has now exceeded traditional American catsup in
unit volume.
If bagels can become regular fare in Arkansas and North Dakota,
and yogurt can escape the ethic and healthfood specialty stores
to command 25% of the typical supermarket dairy case, then the
Tex-Mexicanization of the American diet is likely to happen
faster than any of us expect.
Guard your chile patches!
Cheers,
The Old Bear