Chipotle Mexican Grill California is launching a new spinoff called Farmesa Fresh Eatery in Ghost Kitchen.
This is the latest attempt by the burrito chain to branch out into new cuisines. Its previous spinoffs – Asian Shophouse and Tasty Made – were led by founder Steve Ells and closed by 2017. The company also invested in a pizzeria locale.
This is the first such experiment during Pharmaesa CEO Brian Nicol’s tenure, and the company is taking a more measured approach this time around, leaning on its tried-and-true customizable bowls.
The brand will debut in late February with a limited menu and reduced hours before an official launch in March.
Farma bowls will feature a protein, green or grain, two sides, one of five sauces, and a topping option. Prices will range from $11.95 to $16.95. In an effort to communicate its farm-to-table approach, the brand’s name is a portmanteau of “farm” and “mesa”, the Spanish word for table.
The full menu, created by Chef Nate Appleman, Farmesa’s director of culinary innovation, will include Whipped Potatoes, Golden Beet and Everything Spice-Crusted Ora King Salmon. Appleman, who won a James Beard Award in 2009, previously helped Chipotle add its sparring menu in the early 2000s.
Chipotle doesn’t plan to use much of its own branding for Pharmacia. Nate Lawton, Chipotle’s vice president of new ventures and the architect behind the spinoff, said the company would initially present it to customers as a new brand of Chipotle. And, “when the time is right,” Lawton said, Chipotle will use its loyalty program database to attract potential Farmesa customers.
Customers will be able to order Farmacia for pickup or delivery at an upcoming location at Kitchen United Mix on Third Street in Santa Monica, California, or through third-party delivery apps, such as Doordash And UberEats, When opened, the Santa Monica location will be Kitchen United’s 24th Ghost Kitchen.
ghost kitchenKitchens, also known as cloud or dark kitchens, allow restaurants to prepare food for delivery only. Startups like Kitchen United, which raised $175 million by the end of July, create multiple restaurant brands within one location and tout their models as more efficient because they reduce labor and rent costs for eateries.
For Chipotle, Kitchen United’s model allows the restaurant chain to test new brands with less risk.
“We’ve tried to create a really local, low-cost, flexible and fast way of learning,” said Lawton, who joined Chipotle last year, which I think was one of the key learnings we took away from our previous work. ” on two decades Procter & Gamble,
Farmesa can easily change its menu based on customer feedback, and Kitchen United will handle fast-paced ordering and dealing with customers, leaving the brand to focus on learning as much as it can. Lawton said the starting place is to understand what customers do and don’t want and the economics of the new brand.
While Chipotle executives noted earlier this month that delivery sales were down 15% fourth quarter Compared to the year-ago period, Lawton said Santa Monica consumers ordered delivery nine times more often than the national average, another factor that made Kitchen United attractive to the company.
For now, Chipotle’s main objective with the location is simply to learn, but that doesn’t mean the farmasa won’t grow.
Lawton said there are “a variety of ways” the company could move forward with the new brand, though it plans to keep it separate from Chipotle restaurants.
“While one location doesn’t make a chain, we think the Farmesa Fresh Eatery brand signals that the company is moving beyond its original concept by using many of the characteristics of the Chipotle brand (e.g., simple menu, ‘real’ ingredients, easy operations),” Citi Research analyst John Tower wrote in a Jan. 24 note to clients, before Chipotle officially announced Farmesa’s launch.