In Italy experts and specialized media are starting buzzing about Fast Casual, looking not only at big restaurant chains overseas, but also at brands with a moderate number of restaurants. Both of them are extremely effective in offering a Customer Experience consistent with the values they propose: their concept offer, together with the kind of menu, product, time band and environment, is becoming more and more specific. So, next to super big such as Chipotle, Jimmy Johns, Panera Bread, Firehouse Subs etc, smaller but fast growing brands such as Lemonade, Modmarket, Elevation Burger, Twisted Root and many more stand out.
Italy looks overseas but it seems it hasn’t realized yet that Fast Casual is there as well, and since a quite long time. The reason is quite easy: Italy has got Fast Casual in its blood! Speed, quality and customer understanding are the reasons why!
First of all, Fast Casual was born in Italy many years ago when in 1979 Panino Giusto, one of the top player of this specific segment in restaurant industry, was founded. Today the brand counts about thirty restaurants among Italy, London and Japan, opening very soon in United State as well.
Nowadays speed is an increasingly important requirement for people living and working in urban areas and no client would ever think of spending two hours seated at a table for a lunch.
Quality and attention to the client are Italian restaurants’ feather in the cap since always, so now it’s all about getting up to date knowing precisely the client and offering to him an ultimate Customer Experience aligned to the brand’s value.
Not considering the menu and products which are not superior to the italian ones, Chipotle wouldn’t be a 22 billion dollars without offering an ultimate Customer Experience to its clients. The same works for Jimmy Johns that wouldn’t have the resources and the energy necessary to open one restaurant per day (in March 2015 Jimmy Johns restaurants are 2.166!)
Without really knowing it, many italian brands take part to this revolution in terms of speed, quality and attention to the client. We have already talked about some of them such as Pisacco, Panini Durini, Vasiniko, Ham. Obicà and Ca’pucino. We could list countless of them, but we prefer to nurture each one carefully.
Italian Fast Casual is a true italian excellence that is very likely to be exploited, developed and brought into the world even anticipating those american giants that have already set their eyes on italian market.
We have launched the hashtag #italianfastcasual and we invite you to write to
to know which are the first steps to offer an ultimate Customer Experience in your own brand and restaurants, according to the traditional Italian experience regarding the quality of the product and the service.
