Annotated Bibilography #2

Ruggless, Ron, "Mexican dinnerhouses lose heat as fast-casual segment's sales sizzle." Nation's Restaurant News. 37.33 (Aug 18 2003): 3, 110.

This article discussed the battle for sales between casual dining and fast-casual Mexican food restaurants. The sales of these fast-casual restaurants are steadily growing along with the growth of the companies. Restaurants such as Chipotle and Baja Fresh are thriving and and the number of new locations is rapidly increasing. Cozymel's Coastal Grill, a casual dining restaurant owned by Brinker International Inc., was speculated to prosper as a upscale Mexican food restaurant. By the end of 2003, there were only 16 Cozymel's in existence and they showed no sign of rapid or even moderate growth.

This article is meant to be informative to the reader showing the increase in demand for fast-casual Mexican food restaurants and a decrease in the growth of the casual dining restaurants. The audience being targeted are those who are interested in the growth of these different types of food chains and those who are involved in the prepared Mexican food business.

This poses interesting questions that would be valuable to my research. It would be beneficial to look at why the fast-casual restaurants are able to thrive while the casual dining restaurants are on a downwards slope. By weighing the pros and cons of each style restaurant, i can determine and make an educated guess as to why these markets are performing the way they are.

---

Pethokoukis, James M. "Bye-Bye, Burgers." U.S News & World Report. 133.21 (Dec. 2 2002): 36-7.

This article also deals with the ever growing "fast-casual" food chains, but compares them to many of the popular fast food restaurants. These fast-casual restaurants are made to offer the quickness of a fast food restaurants and the food quality of a casual dining restaurants. While most all fast-casual restaurants are flourishing and growing exponentially, fast foods industry leader, McDonald's, is struggling to keep stores sales up. In 2002, Micky D's closed 175 under performing restaurants. Chipotle Mexican Grill however saw a 116 percent increase in sales.

The author pulls his information from different fast food and restaurant analyst companies and quotes many of these analysts. This article is an informative article that compares the decrease in fast food sales compared to the booming business of the fast-casual food chains. It gives a great overview of how this new fast-casual type of restaurant is taking over the prepared food industry. The article is towards those with interest in the prepared food business and the increased performance of the fast-casual restaurants.

This is another interesting aritcle because not only are those in the casual dining industry feeling the increasing success of the fast-casual food industry. This will allow me to think more critically of the pros can cons of the fast food restaurants as well. I can compare both fast food and casual dinning restaurants to fast-casual restaurants to see if there is a commonality as to why fast-casual is preferred over the other two.