Fast Casual Nation

On this episode of Fast Casual Nation, we talk to a concept that has quickly established itself as a loved brand in Miami.

Consumers today are demanding much more from restaurants. They expect clean, locally sourced ingredients, quick service and affordable prices. While many restaurants try to offer all of these things, few can successfully execute without sacrificing their margins.

American Harvest Co., a concept started by Grove Bay Hospitality Group in the Brickell City Center, seems to have found the right balance.

With a menu focused around clean eating, American Harvest serves up minimally processed foods. They use words like ‘GMO-free’, ‘grass-fed’, and ‘organic,’ to support their commitment to sustainable practices and sourcing local.

With decades of experience combined between the top three minds of the leadership team, the Grove Bay Group has perfected every aspect of American Harvest Co. and now they market it as their growth brand.

Watch the episode above for more expert insights into fast casual!

Los Angeles-native Vanessa Jerolmack has been making traditional Mexican tacos all her life, but it wasn't until she moved to Philadelphia that she thought to open up a shop dishing out the craveable bites. Now, on a lot on Baltimore Avenue, Taco Angeleno serves customers fully customizable tacos, burritos and quesadillas with an array of options, even catering to the vegan crowd.

“We make a homemade seitan here, and that's from my vegan days,” Jerolmack explains. “Like, I wanted something meaty tasting that I could eat with all the normal toppings that the other people with a meat taco were eating.”

Using a commercial kitchen 10 blocks away, Taco Angeleno preps all its ingredients before bringing them to the food cart to be served. Customizable toppings like Salvadorian curtido, and staples like onions, cilantro, and lime take the tacos to the next level.

Being an outdoor restaurant, Taco Angeleno is only open from May through October to avoid the cold and rainy Philadelphia weather, but you can visit Taco Angeleno year-round by watching the episode above!

Aside from earning the prestigious title of Iron Chef in 2009, Jose Garces has many other claims to fame such as his many restaurant brands in Philadelphia. Volvér, Distrito, and Amada are just a few of his successful concepts. But you don't have to pay an arm and a leg to get a taste of the chef's famed fish tacos.

The Garces Group’s only fast casual concept, Buena Onda, takes Garces’ culinary excellence and serves it up at affordable prices. Take, for example, their 5-dollar margaritas available on Taco Tuesdays! The Vice President of Culinary Operations for the Garces Group, Gregg Ciprioni, helped Foodable understand how Buena Onda is able to create top level dishes keeping costs low.

“We featured mahi-mahi when we first opened here but there was an issue with overfishing in the past year and so it became prohibitively expensive,” Ciprioni explains. “You have to be really flexible with what you’re serving. You have to find what works right in this concept and we found that [Perch] is super consistent, it’s sustainable and delicious.”

Taking tips from its upscale big brothers, Buena Onda makes its flour tortillas from scratch daily. The tacos are topped with delicious garnishes like pickled purple cabbage, scallions and chipotle remoulade. With all this flavor, Greg also gave us some tips on retaining freshness for delivery. Watch the episode above to see how they’re doing it!

Coming from a number of fast food chains, Kathleen Richardson knew a thing or two about the business, but she wanted to do something a little different. So she dove back into her hometown of Richmond, Virginia and opened a fast casual of her own, The Urban Farmhouse Market & Café. Founded in 2010, the mission behind The Urban Farmhouse is to bring the farm to the city and suburbs while providing customers with local, wholesome food. Though their menu is not outrageously unique, the way each menu item is made is what makes them stand out.

Poké 305 started as an idea by Founder Victoria Chediak. As a food blogger, Victoria was always in tune with food trends and was intrigued by the traditional Hawaiian dish, poké. Although poké has been gaining a lot of attention in the food world, Victoria noticed there weren’t really any poké options in Miami. That’s when she started thinking about what she could offer to the Brickell community.

Consumers today expect much more from restaurants. They demand clean ingredients that are locally sourced. They demand quick service at affordable prices. Many restaurants have tried to offer all of these things but not without sacrificing their margins. However, American Harvest Co. seems to have found the right balance in order to scale their healthy concept. American Harvest is a concept started by Grove Bay Hospitality Group in Brickell with a focus on “Delicious. Clean. Eating.”

With a menu including grass-fed burgers, cage-free rotisserie chicken, and sustainable tuna, American Harvest Co. is a place you can feel good about eating at.

Clove Mediterranean Kitchen was inspired by two partners with different experiences in the foodservice industry. Alex Revynthis has an extensive background in the food and beverage industry, most recently at Costa Coffee as their chief financial officer. Spiro Naos opened a number of Miami Subs sandwich shops before getting involved in other ventures. After meeting in New York, the duo decided to partner up on a Mediterranean fast casual concept.

While fast casual is the fastest-growing segment of the industry, the Clove team noticed the lack of Mediterranean options in the space — especially Mediterranean cuisine that focused on the simple, clean ingredients important to traditional cuisine. After being introduced to Greek Celebrity Chef Andreas Lagos, the pair knew he was the right guy to develop their menu.

As a part of the healthy fast-casual scene, honeygrow has already set itself apart from the crowd with its green menu. Founder Justin Rosenberg decided to make touch-screen ordering systems an integral part of his business plan, and the combination was a hit. With 15 restaurants in just four years, customers continuously come back for more.

We decided to stop in and talk to honeygrow Culinary Director David Katz to see what makes their restaurants so popular —and even Chef Katz had to give props to the ordering system.

Green2Go is a fast-casual concept started by two moms who were having a hard time finding healthy fast food that they felt was good enough to feed their children. After discussing their frustrations, Joulia Hantas-Kalah and Anita Allison decided they would open their own restaurant. Serving only clean, healthy ingredients, green2Go has created a loyal following in California.

What exactly is "clean" food? Anita explained what it means to them in just a few words: “Basically, it’s all natural.” Joulia added, "It’s real food! At the end of the day, we feel someone at some point has to draw that line, and that’s what we chose to do and how we opened in 2012.”

Joulia said some restaurants have tried to provide clean food, but they are often hindered by how difficult it can be to keep clean ingredients fresh because of their lack of preservatives. This leads those restaurants creating modified menus serving only the clean ingredients they are able to control. However, the green2Go duo didn’t want to change what people were eating. They simply wanted to make those dishes cleaner. So they took dishes like burgers, tacos, and rice bowls, and served them — just with better ingredients.

Fast Casual Nation acts as your guide as to what makes a successful fast casual concept. Always on the go, today’s consumer is looking for high-quality meals — with just as much speed. This year, we got the chance to see some fast casuals that have found their groove within the segment. Here are Foodable's "Best of" episodes for Fast Casual Nation in 2016.

Keep an eye out for all of this year's "Best of" episodes to learn more about which industry professionals changed the game in 2016!