The end of the lunch bowl era

By Redd Brown, Dina Katgara, Bloomberg News

Americans are increasingly over the “slop bowl.”

Chipotle, Sweetgreen and Cava — once stars of the restaurant industry — are struggling as diners tire of all those pick-your-own ingredients piled atop rice or greens. Instead, lunchgoers are choosing offerings with more texture, like sandwiches and tacos, that fill them up and often cost less.

Even Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle and the burrito bowl that rocketed the chain to lunchtime fame, has moved on. At a Manhattan location of his new concept Counter Service, there’s a red neon sign depicting a lunch bowl with a slash through it. It’s a bowl-free zone, reinforced by a website that proclaims “we love sandwiches” and “anything, as long as it can go on bread.”

“We’ve gone back to handheld,” said Ells, who left Chipotle in 2020. That came more than 15 years after debuting a bowl in response to customers opening up their burritos and asking for a fork to eat the innards. The bowl quickly became the chain’s top-selling menu item and spawned a boom that led to chains such as Cava and Sweetgreen.

Ells said the shift to bowls in 2003 lifted the Chipotle experience and helped broaden its appeal by serving “super premium quality food in a form that didn’t appear like fast food to folks.” Now to stand out, he says Counter Service is “offering sandwiches that are elevated in a lot of ways.” (One of its sandwiches priced at nearly $16 features dry-rubbed pork loin, salsa verde and broccoli rabe.)

Alejandro Paczka, a 28-year-old designer in New York, has cut back on his Chipotle lunch habit and turned to cheaper options, including Subway sandwiches. Some of the shift is for “money reasons,” but people are also just tired of “eating slop” — a reference to “slop bowls,” an increasingly popular description coined by critics.

There’s a resistance to: “I go to the office, and I eat slop” Paczka said. “Kind of like cattle.”

In recent weeks, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Sweetgreen Inc. and Cava Group Inc. slashed their financial targets, deepening stock declines. That included Chipotle saying revenue this year from established locations will fall at a low-single-digit percentage, which would be the second annual decrease since it went public nearly 20 years ago. (The only other drop came in 2016 during an E. coli outbreak.) The companies have combined to lose $48 billion in market value so far this year, a slump of about 50%.

While the fortunes of these chains have fallen in the last six months, Michael Kaufman, a lecturer for Harvard Business School, says not to “count them out at all.” They became successful by serving fresh food quickly, and that’s what they should remind consumers of in marketing. Wall Street expects Chipotle to bounce back and increase sales from existing stores about 2% next year. Analysts on average project revenue by that measure in 2026 to grow at Cava, but at a slower pace than 2025, and to decline less than 1% at Sweetgreen.

The chains’ responses to this wipeout haven’t impressed investors so far. In a nod to the bowl backlash, Sweetgreen will test a handheld menu item early next year. It’s also talking about a better checkout experience and wanting to become a lifestyle brand.

Chipotle is trying to make its dining rooms cleaner while offering more limited-time menu items to increase interest. Cava sees bringing a “Mediterranean way of life” to restaurants with more greenery and softer seats as a way to boost customer visits.

The companies do realize they have a pricing problem — one ignited by the highest food inflation in decades — and are attempting to convince customers that their higher cost meals are worth it. Sweetgreen has increased some protein portions by 25% to lift perceived value. It will also offer a $10 bowl for a limited time starting in December, according to a person familiar with the plans who couldn’t speak publicly about them.

Nikhil Kalamdani, a 36-year-old sales rep for a New Jersey tech consulting firm, used to love these chains, but rising prices turned him off and now he cooks more.

“The whole idea of just choosing your own toppings and vegetables and everything was great because generally it was less than $10 per bowl,” Kalamdani said of his experience before the pandemic. “Now I’m looking at $12 or $13. The psychology of something surpassing $10 isn’t really appealing.”

Cava Chief Executive Officer Brett Schulman, who co-founded the chain in 2010, said in an interview that restaurants have generally become too expensive. Meanwhile, the number of promotions in the industry has risen back to levels last seen during the recession of the late aughts, he said. But Cava won’t be responding by pouring on the discounts in what he called a “race to the bottom.”

“That’s not what’s gonna sustain our value proposition over the long term,” Schulman said. Instead, the chain needs to offer a “better alternative than what they can create themselves at home or what they can get at the three or four restaurants next to us.”

Chipotle, which at more than $11 billion in annual sales is nearly seven times larger than the combined revenue of Cava and Sweetgreen, also won’t be trying to win back customers with lower prices and deals. Chief Executive Officer Scott Boatwright, who took the helm in 2024 after about seven years at the company, said on a recent earnings call that when sales have weakened in the past, the chain has “doubled down” on execution, not discounts, to revive growth.

“Our value proposition includes food made fresh with the highest-quality ingredients prepared using classic culinary techniques, served in generous portions with reliable accuracy and fast, friendly service,” Boatwright said on a recent earnings call. Chipotle’s offering “has never been stronger.”

These chains are considered fast casual, a concept that blossomed early this century as a middle ground. Restaurants like Panera Bread and Chipotle combined the speed of fast food with the higher quality menu options and nicer settings of full-service dining. The model proved lucrative as chains sprouted up across the country, spanning burgers to pizza and salad.

But not all fast casual chains are struggling. Shake Shack Inc., which sells burgers and chicken sandwiches, has warned of economic headwinds, but still boosted comparable sales growth about 5% last quarter, nearly doubling the average Wall Street projection. Sandwich chain Potbelly boosted sales nearly 7% in September and more than 3% in October, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, which tracks anonymous credit- and debit-card transactions in the US.

Making matters worse for the fast-casual sector is that fast-food chains are pushing value to win cash-strapped customers. McDonald’s earlier this year cut the price of several combo meals and launched an $8 Big Mac and McNugget deal, while Wendy’s rolled out a $3 breakfast.

Casual dining has stepped up promotions, too. At Chili’s, the full-service chain owned by Brinker International Inc., a $10.99 burger deal that includes a drink and bottomless chips helped drive sales growth at existing locations above 20% in recent quarters.

That leaves these fast-casual chains mostly focused on marketing, menu tweaks and improved operations to boost results. Those strategies might prove fruitless until the economy strengthens and the financial situations of the younger consumers who fueled their growth improve, said Joe Pawlak, managing principal with food service data firm Technomic.

According to Pawlak, “limited time offers and innovation are no silver bullet.”

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