Is Pasta the New Burger and Fries?

With the advent of several new “fast casual” restaurants serving pasta as a mainstay of their menus, some analysts think the time may have come for pasta to become a mainstay of American restaurant menus in the fast food world.

Always Available at Slow Food Places

Pasta has always been a staple of the slow food restaurants where diners would sit down to a white cloth dinner table and enjoy heaping mounds of pasta covered in various types of sauces. Even restaurants that didn’t focus on pasta on their menus often offered the Italian food as part of their optional menu. What is new is that this is being done in the fast food market.

Not Quite Kept Under Heating Lamps

Of course, the new pasta places aren’t exactly warming up piles of pasta and keeping them under heating lamps, ala hamburgers and fries. One new place is offering pasta meals custom made to order, using only the freshest of ingredients and all of them organic at that. However, just because the pasta is custom made to order doesn’t mean it’s a sit down restaurant in disguise. This is still a fast casual style restaurant and that’s what’ so exciting about the new pasta places springing up all over the country.

So Should We Add Pasta to the Menu?

If you’re running a fast food place and wondering after reading this blog post whether or not it’s time to start adding pasta to the menu, the answer is probably not. Let’s face it, pasta isn’t exactly what most people think of when they walk into the local greasy spoon. There is a certain kind of fair expected in these places and pasta really doesn’t fit into a place offering fries, milkshakes and monster size burgers.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a new restaurant concept, pasta may be just the thing you need for your new restaurant and serving it in a more casual, fast food atmosphere may be the way to go.

Tags: fast casual, new menu, Pasta