Refining the Menu : Fast-Food Chains Change Fare, Add Sit-Down Dining

Burger King is experimenting with table service. Jack in the Box is offering teriyaki bowls--lean chicken or beef--served with carrots, broccoli and rice. And at Taco Bell, they’re cooking up plans for a whole chain of sit-down Mexican restaurants.

As a generation raised on fast food decides that it’s time to slow down and savor the cuisine, the nation’s top fast-food chains are scrambling to adjust.

“Baby boomers are getting to a point in their life where they’re more demanding and they have a little more disposable income,” said David Wilhelm, founder of the trendy Bistro 201, Diva and Kachina restaurants in Orange County. “There’s no reason why fast food can’t taste good, be relatively healthy and be sophisticated enough to appeal to a more sophisticated palate.”

Analysts say that some boomers are simply tired of the same old fare of burgers and tacos. Others, they say, want the convenient, relatively inexpensive food to which they are accustomed but have outgrown the dine-and-dash atmosphere. At the same time, growing ethnic diversity, especially in Southern California, is driving fast-food restaurants to broaden their menus.

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The message to fast-food franchisers is simple, said Janet Lowder, a restaurant industry analyst based in Rancho Palos Verdes: “If you don’t continuously change and offer new things, the consumer goes elsewhere.”

To meet the challenge, restaurant companies are using two strategies: changing the fare at existing eateries and branching out into sit-down dining.

Jack in the Box, while still solidly in the burger business, has updated its menu so that fully half of its items are recent additions. The teriyaki bowl, for example, is “the kind of food yuppies would enjoy eating at lunch or dinner,” said Mo Iqbal, executive vice president of marketing at parent Foodmaker Inc. in San Diego. “People will buy it not only because it’s good for them but because it tastes good.”

Restaurants are offering different menus because boomers’ palates “have become much more sophisticated,” Iqbal said, “and as your palate gets more sophisticated, you enjoy more tastes and textures.

“It’s like the old days, when a kid took an Oreo and licked off the cream. Now, if you have an Oreo, you want the cream and the cookie.”

Boomers’ willingness to explore new foods meshes with the increasingly ethnic makeup of the nation’s population, particularly in Southern California, Iqbal said, but most of the changes are designed for mass appeal.

Rather than trying to push consumers “from a Volkswagen to a Mercedes,” restaurateurs are coming up with dishes that are only slightly more expensive than regular fast food, said Keith Frohreich, marketing director for Cafe Classico in Brea, a subsidiary of ice cream giant Baskin-Robbins.

Some of the biggest fast-food companies, however, have much more ambitious plans to tempt baby boomers.

Taco Bell, an Irvine-based subsidiary of soft-drink giant Pepsico Inc., intends to develop and build a national chain of sit-down Mexican-style restaurants that offer good food at moderate prices in a relaxed setting.

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Taco Bell is teaming up with restaurateur Wilhelm to design a chain of upscale Southwestern-style cantinas. That move pits Taco Bell against a new, 350-unit chain that will spring into existence later this year when a group led by Foodmaker, Jack In The Box’s parent, completes its acquisition of Restaurant Enterprises Group, also based in Irvine.

Such moves into the culinary slow lane are driven by changing demographics, industry analysts and insiders say.

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Two decades ago, restaurant marketing was a simple proposition, said Mission Viejo businessman Mike Phillips, who opened a Burger King in San Pedro in the early 1970s. “The conventional wisdom was: Appeal to the kids, and they’ll bring their parents.”

Restaurateurs also recognize that with California’s tight economy a big Friday night does not necessarily mean a movie and dinner anymore. “The dinner is seen as entertainment,” said Michael Rhodes, president of the Orange County Chapter of the California Restaurant Assn.

There is still a strong demand, restaurant industry observers say, for no-frills operators such as In-N-Out Burger, the Baldwin Park company that is sticking with its formula of burgers, fries and drinks served up fast.

The fast-food industry “isn’t in trouble,” said Ron Paul, a restaurant industry consultant in Chicago. “But demographics are working against it.”

Fast Food vs. Fine Dining

As the baby-boom generation matures, leisurely dining is gaining popularity over impulsive pit stops at the nearest drive-through. Southern Californians’ dining preferences generally reflect that trend, according to a county-by-county survey by the National Restaurant Assn.

Orange

Fast food: 39%

Full service: 53%

Other: 8%

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Los Angeles

Fast food: 36%

Full service: 53%

Other: 11%

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Riverside/San Bernardino

Fast food: 48%

Full service: 47%

Other: 5%

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San Diego

Fast food: 39%

Full service: 54%

Other: 7%

Demographics of Dining: Who Likes What

A nationwide survey of ethnic food aficionados gives a profile of the typical diner for the three top-ranking cuisines:

Mexican

Age: 25-54

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. *

Italian

Age: 18-34

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. *

Chinese

Age: 18-54

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.

Source: National Restaurant Assn.; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times