More than 20 years after its founding, Burrito Beach is undergoing a rebirth.
The Chicago-based Mexican chain, which hasn’t expanded much beyond its original handful of restaurants, this year plans to explore spots for new locations, where it will introduce a new look and added menu offerings. The prototype for these new restaurants is a new location at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Feinberg Pavilion, which opened earlier this year. The Northwestern location is a modern, brighter twist on the other five locations, with added options like made-from-scratch frozen custard. But founder and CEO Greg Schulson says the important tenets of the brand — ample portions, food quality and value — are still the key to driving growth.
Schulson recently sat down with the Tribune at Burrito Beach’s newest location. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did you get started with the business?
A: It started as a passion project, a side project. (Schulson is president and CEO of Lunan Corp., which operates a number of Arby’s franchises.) Four years ago, we looked back on this business that was not receiving a ton of focus, and we realized we were still doing quite well. Comparable sales over three years were up almost 40 percent.
I looked at it and said, “This darn thing is doing well. I’m going to push it really hard and see what happens.” We continued to analyze and refine it.
Q: The Northwestern location looks a lot different from older Burrito Beach restaurants. What is your thinking behind the look?
A: It was important to us to have a bright, modern environment because consumers are changing. People now are looking for visual stimulation. Food tourism is a hobby now. I think millennials have driven this. We thought that if we put that extra visual emphasis on the brand that we could connect with our consumers on an even greater level. We have great food and a great value proposition, but we’ve never really had a strong visual communication.
We’ve always priced ourselves less than our competitors, we give bigger portions, so we think the value is there. We’ve got a broader menu, spicier profile. We run it as a local business, we try and treat people as local. The restaurant business is half art and half science. You can’t discount the art — the art is connecting with people.
Q: How is the new restaurant being received?
A: I’m just really excited about this place, really. I think we’ve hit a good note here. You can see that we attract a very nice, diverse crowd of people. And I think at the end of the day, people appreciate good food and good value. I also think our food is high flavor.
Q: What’s your current favorite menu item?
A: I can eat our fish taco every day. And frankly for the last week, I probably have.
The fish tacos are brand-new. They’re selling tremendously well, and we found a way to execute them within our operating system, do it on a consistent and fresh basis, while still being able to provide speed of service.
Q: Where are you scouting for your three future locations?
A: We’re looking at two in the city and one in the suburbs. That’s just to get started. Look, there’s a lot of competition in the restaurant business. But if you’re good at what you do, and you make the effort to connect with your consumer, there will be a place for you to be successful. We found that place over a long period of time, and now all we’re really doing is just taking what we’ve been doing and growing beyond our current footprint with the new brand and new look.
Q: How much flexibility do you have with the menu from one location to another?
I would say 90 percent of it is the same. But when we run a special maybe I run one special at this location and maybe focus on breakfast specials at one location. One of the unique things about our brand is that we have a very strong breakfast offering. I think that gives us an advantage. Breakfast is a meal period where you can really show your quality: You’re making the food to order, and people can really see what you’re doing, and it makes a difference. It sends the right signals throughout your entire brand perception over the course of the day.
Q: Why did you decide to use grass-fed beef and make similar ingredient upgrades in light of the cost?
A: I think the origin of the ingredients is more of a conversation today, especially with the younger generation, and I think it’s important that you work toward that when you can in your restaurants. There’s a certain amount of willingness that people have and an expectation and they don’t mind paying a little bit more for something like that. The grass-fed barbacoa is more expensive than it would be if I used regular barbacoa. So we try and make a decision because we’re at a value price point relative to a full-service restaurant, about where we can afford to put something in. It’s a judgment call. And we just do it where we can. The quinoa is organic. The chicken’s all-natural. In some cases, we just choose to eat the incremental food cost ourselves because we think it sends the right message.
You can’t pass everything on to your customer. Your relationship with your customer is a partnership, you know what I mean? It can’t be “OK, my cost went up, and every time it happens I put my incremental cost on my consumer.” It’s not like that. Then they don’t appreciate you. You have to appreciate people too, and say “OK, look: Avocados are way up, and I’m still going to serve guacamole at the same price. I’m going to eat (the price increase) this time.” That’s what I believe. We’ve always had this “abundance, flavor, value” philosophy. And when we raise prices — because we do it so infrequently — we rarely have any pushback.
Q: Why did you decide to start a custard line? You don’t have it at any other restaurants.
A: It was two things. One, we were looking to expand the brand into a snack and dessert day part, and we thought this would be a good location to try it. We developed this from scratch, and we will be rolling it out opportunistically in locations where it makes sense. And we are working on ways to use our knowledge from the custard to create a dessert program for the other restaurants. It fits nicely under the “Beach” umbrella.
Twitter @SamWillTravel
