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Will Ohioans get behind Chipotle's better-burger candidate?

What do the Republican party and Chipotle have in common? No, it’s not a setup for a joke; both view Ohio as a great place to market their brands. Last week, the Republican National Convention took over Cleveland to tout all-things Trump. Now it's Chipotle's turn to descend on Ohio to tout all-natural burgers and shakes.

July 28, 2016 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com

The company's new better-burger concept, Tasty Made, will debut in Lancaster, Ohio, in a few months and will serve burgers, fries and shakes made with high quality ingredients, co-CEO Steve Ells said in a company press release.

"Chipotle has been focused on a long-term vision to change the way people think about and eat fast food," he said. "At the heart of that is our commitment to great quality ingredients and classic cooking techniques — traits that are absolutely necessary to make the best tasting food, and that can be applied to number of kinds of cuisine."

The menu will focus on just three things: burgers; fresh-cut French fries; and milkshakes. Patties, made from Responsibly Raised brand beef will come served on freshly made buns free of preservatives, dough conditioners and other artificial ingredients. Shakes will contain real ingredients, including milk, cream, sugar, eggs and other natural ingredients, according to the release.

"Early fast food burger restaurants generally had focused menus,” said Ells. "We think there’s great strength in that original fast food model and wanted to create a restaurant built around that.

That strategy has worked for Five Guys Burgers & Fries, which has thousands of units that only serve burgers, hot dogs and fries, so Ells is probably on to something.

"Making only burgers, fries and shakes with really great ingredients, we think we can appeal to people's timeless love of burgers, but in a way that is consistent with our long-term vision,” he said.

Creating the brand

To develop Tasty Made, Ells led a small team comprised of two Chipotle staffers who are also Ohio natives. Nate Appleman, a James Beard Award-winning chef, joined Chipotle in 2010, as culinary manager, and David Chrisman has worked at Chipotle for 17 years, most recently serving as the national training director overseeing all training functions and new restaurant openings.

"Nate and David have proven track records and diverse backgrounds that make them ideally suited to develop and oversee this new restaurant,” Ells said. "Their talents include everything from developing menus to building incredible restaurant teams."

What's in a name?

Earlier this year, Chipotle filed a trademark application for the term "Better Burger" but dropped the claim in May. The fact that the term has been widely used among media and other restaurant operators — think Mooyah, Smashburger and Elevation Burger — to describe a variety of fast casual chains that specialize in higher quality burgers, might have made it difficult to obtain.

"We weren’t wedded to it and received a challenge, so we simply chose to let it go," said Chris Arnold, Chipotle's media relations director. " It’s not the first time we’ve filed a trademark application for a mark we opted never to use."

The first Tasty Made will open at 732 N. Memorial Dr. in Lancaster. Chipotle already operates two other non-Chipotle growth seed restaurants — ShopHouse and Pizzeria Locale.

Franchising

About Cherryh Cansler

Cherryh Cansler is VP of Events for Networld Media Group and publisher of FastCasual.com. She has been covering the restaurant industry since 2012. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine, among many others.

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