American Appetite for Asian Food Stirs a Rush to Set Up Fast-Food Chains
Californians couldn’t get enough of Ray Kroc’s hamburgers and Col. Harland Sanders’ fried chicken. So Thomas Burnham figures they must be ready for his moo goo gai pan.
The former Domino’s Pizza executive is banking that the Golden State and its multicultural populace will embrace a food delivery chain offering entrees that some customers may have trouble pronouncing.
He is the brains behind Ho-Lee-Chow, a Chinese food company in the Midwest that has sold more than 270 franchises nationally, including 14 in the Southland. The chain plans to open stores in Orange County by 1994.
It is one of several restaurant companies aiming to become the first major national chain specializing in Asian food, one of the last great opportunities remaining in the quick-service dining industry. “It’s not a niche. It’s a gaping hole,” said one would-be competitor.
Fast-food Chinese meals have attracted a strong following because of they are perceived as healthy and relatively cheap. Entrees are typically loaded with vegetables and sell for about $5 a plate.
While Americans say that Chinese dishes rank with Italian as their favorite ethnic cuisines, almost all Asian food restaurants are either individually owned or part of small chains.
Only two restaurant chains featuring Asian cuisine ranked among the top 400 food-serving organizations in the United States this year by Restaurants and Institutions, a trade magazine. Yet, a 1989 survey by the National Restaurant Assn. found that 45% of diners had eaten Chinese food in the previous month, and 78% had tasted Chinese cooking at least once.
Asian fast-food outlets are growing at a 20% annual clip, one of the fastest rates in the industry. Customer traffic grew a third from 1987 to 1990 in Asian-cuisine restaurants, while it declined slightly during the same period in hamburger, chicken and fast-food stands, according to the restaurant association.
One sure sign that Asian food is catching on is the interest of a food industry giant, General Mills Inc., which has been testing a moderately priced, sit-down Chinese restaurant called China Coast in Orlando, Fla., for several years.
“If you look back at the evolution of ethnic foods, they all took time, and the last people who come into them are the big companies,” said Norman Habermann, president of Restaurant Enterprises Group in Irvine, which operates such nationwide chains as Reuben’s and Coco’s. “I think Chinese and other Asian fast food will be the 1990s concepts that will work.”
Several chains are already poised for national status and are expanding as fast as rice in boiling water. Two of them are based in Southern California--Panda Express in Pasadena and Yoshinoya Beef Bowl in Torrance. Each has more than 50 units, including several in Orange County. They face national competitors like Manchu Wok, based in Toronto; Mark Pi’s Express in Columbus, Ohio; and Oriental Express, in Raleigh, N.C.
But building any restaurant chain is no cakewalk. The entrepreneurs of Asian cuisine have encountered their unique hurdles. For one, Asian dishes can be tricky to prepare. It is also difficult to maintain consistent quality between outlets.
There is also the challenge of keeping the food warm and appetizing. Asian food doesn’t have the “holding time” of other delivered foods, such as pizza. “It looks like a big gob” if left sitting too long, warns Southland restaurant analyst Janet Lowder.
The chains, however, have gone to lengths to adapt.
Ho-Lee-Chow, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., hired chemists to turn its sauces into ready-to-mix powders. “We can’t have guys making sauces and creating works of art,” Burnham explained.
Other chains have followed a similar route. “We have standardized recipes, and all of the chefs go through a training process right down to how the vegetables are cut,” said Anna Yee, marketing director for Panda Management Co., which operates eight of its 70 Panda Express units in Orange County.
The delivery chains typically only serve households within a range of a couple miles to make sure delivery times are quick.
As for taste, the goal is to make Americans so accustomed to Asian-style cooking that moo shu pork becomes as patriotic as french fries. “We will convert this into a food style where the word Chinese falls off,” Burnham pledges.
But it may take time. Lowder points out that it took Taco Bell years before its brand of Mexican-style fast food finally caught on.
Indeed, some well-financed operations have attempted national chains and flopped. One was Confucius, a Canadian chain that signed an agreement with a U.S. affiliate in Newport Beach that planned to open 5,000 restaurants. The deal broke up, however, in a trademark dispute, according to the chain’s former spokeswoman. The Ring Mr. Ching chain of eight stores, tested for five years in preparation for a national rollout, failed last year in Atlanta.
While most of the companies with national aspirations plan to serve Chinese food, other varieties of Asian foods are successful, too. The Yoshinoya Beef Bowl, operated by Yoshinoya West Inc. in Torrance, is the offshoot of a Tokyo-based chain that has expanded rapidly in Southern California. There are 56 stores, with 10 more on the way.
“No one has this product,” said Advertising Director Yoshi Mura. And at $3.40 for the restaurant’s largest beef and rice bowl, it is priced modestly enough to compete in the discount-crazed fast-food business.
Along with the national race, several companies are vying to establish a Chinese food empire in Orange County.
Wok Spirit, operated by Urban Foods Inc. in Newport Beach, opened its first takeout and delivery location Thursday in Costa Mesa. The time is right, said Urban Foods President Chuck Denholm, for high-quality, home-delivered Chinese entrees.
“It seems to be a trend of the ‘90s. (Consumers are) either cocooning or so busy at other lifestyles that a quality meal delivery (service) allows them to have more time with their family,” he said. Wok Spirit hopes to expand into Santa Ana, Irvine and Lake Forest, with plans to open six stores next year.
Wok Spirit will challenge Wok Fast, a West Los Angeles-based delivery chain, which plans to open next year in Orange County.
Orange County has affluent areas that are ripe for $20 Chinese home-delivered dinners. “Right now, we’re out actively looking for sites. Initially, we are going to look into Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach,” Dameshek said.
An Anaheim business group is working to open the first My Chinese Kitchen home-delivered food chain, but so far lacks financing. The group, Or-Am Food Systems, has contracted with Bay Area chef Martin Yan, who hosts a Chinese cooking show on public television.
“We’re the only ones who have taken a well-known figure and incorporated (him into our) marketing plans,” said a company spokesman. But pending financing, My Chinese Kitchen will have to wait.
In the sit-down category, Busy Bee has thrived by blending a variety of Asian cuisines--Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese. Tim Templado, vice president of operations, readily admits that educating diners is as important as serving them when it comes to Asian food.
Servers are instructed to hand out plenty of samples if diners are hesitant to try an unfamiliar dish, he said. And to make some of the dishes more appealing to Westerners, Vietnamese dishes such as Dae Ji Bul Go Ki are listed on the menu board by the more palatable and pronounceable “hot and spicy pork.”
A Taste for Ethnic Cuisine
A nationwide telephone survey finds that Chinese, Italian (excluding pizza) and Mexican food lead the pack in popularity among American palates. Fewer say they have sampled Vietnamese, Thai, African, Russian and Scandinavian cuisines.
* HOW CUISINES RANK Type: Percent Well-known Chinese: 78 Italian (excluding pizza): 76 Mexican: 74 Still room to grow French: 45 Spanish: 39 German: 38 Japanese: 36 Greek: 35 Latin American: 26 Relatively undiscovered Indian: 18 Caribbean: 17 Eastern European: 15 Middle Eastern: 14 Korean: 13 Thai: 12 Vietnamese: 12 Scandinavian: 12 Russian: 11 African: 5 * EXPERIENCING THE UNTRIED More than one-third of those surveyed say they plan to try the less popular, but known commodities such as French and Spanish foods.
Regular customers Periodic customers Willing to try Chinese 64% 31% 5% French 16% 50% 34% Spanish 23% 41% 36%
Note: A regular customer has eaten a specific ethnic food in the month before the survey and plans to do so in the future; periodic customers have eaten a specific food in the past and will probably do so in the future. * ETHNIC FOOD FANS A profile of the ethnic food aficionado for the three top-ranking cuisines: Chinese Age: 18 to 54 Household income: $25,000 or more Residency: Metropolitan area with population greater than 1 million Where it’s eaten: 25% order takeout Frequency: Of the 78% who have eaten Chinese food, 45% had done so during the month before the survey Italian Age: 18 to 34 Household income: $35,000 or more Residency: Metropolitan area with population greater than 1 million Where it’s eaten: 16% order takeout Frequency: Of the 76% who have eaten Italian food, 46% had done so during the month before the survey Mexican Age: 25 to 54 Household income: $25,000 or more Residency: Metropolitan area with population less than 250,000 Where it’s eaten: 17% order takeout Frequency: Of the 74% who have eaten Mexican food, 41% had done so during the month before the survey Source: National Restaurant Assn. survey
