Food operation?

Fast food restaurant, Chipotle

Menu type: Static

Restaurants or food businesses are classified into categories, which we can define in three main
categories: fast service, medium category, and luxury.

Fast food restaurants offer limited menus of products that are quickly prepared and sold at a relatively
low price. In addition to a very informal dining area, characterized by offering drive-thru and take-out
service.

When people think of fast-food restaurants, hamburgers and fries often come to mind, but
establishments in this category also serve chicken, hot dogs, sandwiches, pizza, seafood, and ethnic
foods. At this time, I decided to talk about a fast-food restaurant called Chipotle.

Fast food is characterized especially by the speed with which the service is offered, but it also has other
peculiarities:

- It is a complete meal. Most restaurants and establishments offer a menu that includes
carbohydrates (bread, French fries), fats (dressings) and vegetables (tomato, lettuce, onion ...).
- It is cheaper than the dishes offered in traditional restaurants.
- It is easy to transport and to consume.
- Although there are some detractors of this type of food, today you can get healthy fast-food
proposals. In addition, if consumed in moderation, the risk that it could be harmful to health
decreases.

Pros of fast-food restaurants

Why? The answer is easy, because you do not need a large premises and it does not require a large
investment. But also…

- Food and drinks are served quickly. This way you can serve more customers in less time.
- People, who have limited time to eat, always prefer this type of food.
- It is palatable to a wide audience.
- They are easy to prepare, and you don't need a very elaborate recipe or exotic ingredients.
- They are not harmful in terms of hygiene and food safety, as long as the standards established in
this regard are maintained.
- You can sell it in your own store or establishment, self-service or take away. In this way you will
increase your income.
Some pros about the static menus used in fast food restaurants:

- Keep the flow of fast-food environment. Most of customer already know the menu of these
restaurants, therefore they won’t spend extra time looking at the menu. Customers usually have
on mind what they want before getting into the restaurant
- Suitable menu for a Drive-thru screen. If you order in Drive-thru you don’t have a lot of time to
decide what you want to eat, so the static menus can be right next to the speaker, printed in big
letters so that the client can quickly see the menu, this could not be possible with a la carte
menus for example
- Less training.
- Reduce work
- It takes little time to plan the menu
- It allows to have control over the raw material
- Reduced inventory.
- It is easy to standardize
- Less leftovers.
- Low costs
- It is not required to keep a large stock in the warehouse

Why a La carte menu would not be suitable for fast food restaurant?

As we know, a La carte menus are wider and have many dishes and beverages available. A key point for
this menu is to keep everything in stock so that you can fulfill all the customer’s orders, wider menu
options the wider stock you need, also the restaurant might need a bigger storage room and very
efficient management flow. Fast food restaurants are usually small and with reduced room and this is
one of the reasons this type of menu would not be suitable for fast food restaurants.

Another reason I think could me an issue with a la carte menu in fast food restaurant is the concept
itself, to be a fast-food restaurant the food needs to be delivered to the customer in a short period of
time, cooks will need to start cooking the dish probably from 0. All above along with the time spent by
the customer reviewing the menu will take the ‘Fast food’ concept away