The industry has dubbed places like St. Louis-based Panera, which has 30 restaurants in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs but nothing as yet downtown, as "fast casual" -- basically, places that aim to be an improvement on fast food. They offer fresh ingredients, prepared in front of the customers, with a nicer decor (and a higher price) than traditional fast food restaurants. They also allow customers to customize their sandwiches with a lengthy list of toppings, and bread that is toasted to heighten the flavor and texture.
To some, however, this is just an ingenious way of gussying up low-cost ingredients. "Standard cold cuts and toppings heated and packaged nicely," as Mark Ordan, owner of the local sandwich-and-salad business High Noon, describes Potbelly's and Quiznos's offerings.
Workers make salads and sandwiches from scratch at a Cosi sandwich shop in Washington. The chain, like its competitors, offers many choices.
(Tom Allen -- The Washington Post)
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Washington baker Mark Furstenberg, who owns BreadLine near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, has nervously watched in the past year as Potbelly, Quiznos and Corner Bakery have all opened within a block of his restaurant.
"It's hurt my business. We used to serve 975 customers a day, we are now serving 775," he said. Competing against the chains is difficult, he said, "because they have greater buying power [with suppliers], so they get better deals. They can also afford to operate at break-even, even at a loss sometimes, to increase their market power."
Breaking Bread
Paul Saval, president of Saval Food Service in Baltimore that supplies meats and breads to many of the independently owned delis and sandwich shops in the region, said chains tend to offer better bread but lower-quality meat "because the meat is more expensive. It's like improving the cover of the book but not the pages."
Still, the popularity of sandwich chains seems to have given the independents a little boost, Saval said. "It may reinvigorate what, as a kid, I called a deli, except now they're called a sandwich store."
Marketing experts have several theories about why sandwiches are popular now and who they are popular with. "A sandwich is very portable, perfect for a time-poor, cash-rich society," said Harry Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, a consumer marketing research firm that tracks American eating habits. However, he added, that does not mean making it at home.
"That loaf of bread, that head of lettuce, tomatoes -- it's hard to keep all that fresh. But the restaurant down the road has them fresh every day. It's more convenient."
And if that restaurant combines sandwiches with ingredients of your choosing in a place with good music and comfortable seating, it's all the more attractive, according to Boston College sociologist and consumerism expert Juliet Schor.
"We'll pay more for quality, for taste, for the psychic benefits we get from being someplace that feels upscale," said Schor, author of "Born to Buy." It is why people buy Starbucks coffee when they could find cheaper, no-name coffee elsewhere.
Fast, Fresh and No Tipping
The National Restaurant Association contends it is aging baby boomers who are buying all those sandwiches because they are willing to pay a little more for "higher flavor, better service and nicer atmosphere," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president for research. But others in the industry disagree.
"Everyone thinks its aging baby boomers driving the growth of fast-casual because they're thinking about their health," Balzer said. "But these restaurants are growing because of heavy use by young adults aged 18 to 35. They are the heaviest restaurant users in America and they choose these places as part of their routine away from home."
Ross Farro, a Cleveland businessman who studied the sandwich market for two years before opening Coggins' Sandwich Manufactory near George Washington University, agreed. "The quick casual market, like Chipotle, Baja Fresh, Panera, their typical customer is in their twenties and thirties and makes $50,000 to $75,000 a year. They want to come in and get fresh food, fast, with no tipping."
A Nod to Jared
At Subway, the international sandwich chain that in many ways started it all almost 40 years ago, spokesman Les Winogard said the typical customer is a man, 18 to 39 year old, "who is a heavy fast-food user," although the chain is attracting a growing number of women and teens with its low-fat options. While many of the newer, more upscale chains owe their success, at least partially, to Subway, they also have nudged the sandwich chain to make some changes of its own, such as updated decor, low-carb wraps and more toppings.
In response to the interest in the early 1990ss for "light" or low-fat food, the company added seven sandwiches that had fewer than 6 grams of fat. It was a modestly successful move until an overweight Indiana University student lost a large amount of weight while eating the low-fat subs.
Jared Fogel, who weighed 435 pounds, ate two low-fat Subway sandwiches a day for a year and shed nearly 250 pounds. The first commercial featuring an amiable, slimmed down Jared, holding an enormous pair of pants he used to wear, aired in 2000. It transformed the company.
Winogard, referring to the ending of a popular credit card commercial, said with a laugh: "For us, it would end with, 'Finding a guy who loses a lot of weight eating your food. Priceless.' "
