Fast Casual Restaurant Ideas to Get Your Food Business Noticed

There are many restaurant concepts out there that are usually classified according to the type of service such as fast food, fast casual, and fine dining. Identifying the right concept for your restaurant will help you better identify your target audience and create an efficient promotional strategy.

In this article, we will focus on fast casual restaurant ideas that will help you make your establishment stand out from the competition.

What is a fast-casual restaurant?

A fast-casual restaurant is a hybrid between a fast food and a casual restaurant. The quality of the food is expected to be better than in a quick-service food business, yet still affordable. Here are some of the main characteristics of a fast-casual establishment:

• Limited service: clients will place the order through an app, but they will be served at the table;
• Small menu: fast casual places usually focus on a specific cuisine or a specific dish to ensure they can provide fast service;
• A higher price point than fast food: as they promise fresh and quality ingredients, the price will be bigger;
• Focus on online ordering and takeaway: usually with a specific counter dedicated to pickup orders;
• An attractive design: as fast casual restaurant owners want to attract customers to dine on premises, they invest in creating a comfortable atmosphere.

Fast casual restaurant concepts

As we have previously mentioned, fast casual restaurants usually have a concept that they base their menu and décor on. If proven successful, the concept can also be turned into a franchise later on.

Here are some of the most common fast-casual restaurant concepts right now:

• Pizza: offer an elevated pizza experience with oven-baked dough and customizable ingredients;
• Bowls: the ultimate dream for people who like to choose their adventure. A great option for you, a restaurant owner, as well, because toppings have a high-profit margin;
• Burgers: compared to fast food burgers, fast-casual restaurants focus more on the quality of ingredients, while still providing fast service;
• Modern Middle Eastern: think falafel, filled pitas, and shareable spreads, the restaurants that adopt this concept are a magnet for groups.

Read more: 8 of the best restaurant concepts to implement in 2024

5 fast-casual restaurant ideas

If you’re wondering how to start a fast-casual restaurant, the first step will be to find your niche. Conduct market research in your area and identify a type of cuisine or dish that people crave, yet there are not many other competitors serving it.

After you also identify your target audience, you can start implementing these fast-casual restaurant ideas:

1. Create an online fast-casual restaurant menu

Having a paper menu that needs to be changed every time you update it is a waste of money. Especially in a fast-casual restaurant where there is no classic table service, so no server to bring the menus.

It is better to solely have an online restaurant menu that allows you to:

• Make unlimited changes, free of charge: for example, when you want to add special dishes around the holidays;
• Mark items as Sold Out: don’t disappoint clients, let them know immediately when you run out of an ingredient and can no longer prepare a menu item;

• Entice people with photos: words will not convince clients as fast as a mouth-watering picture will. Show people what you are serving with professional, yet accurate images.

If you’re looking for the best online restaurant menu builder out there, try out GloriaFood. You can set up the menu and add it to your website in a couple of minutes, all for free:

Read more: Restaurant Menu Planning: How to Optimize Your Menu to Sell More

2. Make it easy for people to order online

Fast casual restaurants don’t usually have a large number of seats on premises, so, to make a good profit, they have to rely on online ordering and pickup orders.

The best way to persuade people to order from your restaurant is to make it easy. Don’t make them go to a third-party app to search for your place because they might find another option there.

Instead, take control of your online orders and add an online ordering system to your website. If you choose the one from GloriaFood, you can even do it for free in less than 10 minutes:

All clients have to do is open the menu on your website, browse the menu, add desired items to the cart, input their information, and place the order. The process is intuitive and fast to encourage customers to keep coming back.

3. Allow customers to order by QR code on-premise

Just because you don’t provide tableside service, it doesn’t have to affect the customer experience. Don’t make people stand in line behind a kiosk, waiting to order.

Instead, allow them to order while seated at their table by simply scanning a QR code. This makes the on-process ordering a breeze both for you and your clients:

• For clients: they scan the code on the table, browse the menu, place the order, and pay. They will be served shortly, directly at the table.
• For you: using the online ordering system from GloriaFood, you enable the on-premise dining and you generate a QR code to print and stick on every table. The orders get automatically transmitted to the kitchen.

Learn how easy it is to set up on-premise dining for your fast casual restaurant:

4. Add hard to say no to promotions to the menu

When you want to stand out from all the other food businesses in your area, adding promotions is the way to go. This is one of the fast-casual restaurant ideas that can help you:

• Attract new customers: you can set up restaurant deals such as 10% off the first online orders or free delivery for the first week of launching your delivery service;

• Increase the average order value: by introducing a minimum order amount to take advantage of the offer, you can persuade customers to order more. For example, free dessert for orders over $60;

• Get more return customers: you can create restaurant promotions that are only available for clients who have placed a certain amount of orders or spent a specific amount of money at your establishment.

Adding promotions should not be a challenging endeavor. With GloriaFood, you can set up irresistible offers in a matter of seconds. They will appear at the top of your online menu so everyone will notice them:

5. Enable customers to order directly from social media

As a fast-casual restaurant owner, your goal is to sell as much of your food as possible. Most of your clients already spend a lot of their time on social media, so why not go directly to them?

Marketing your business on social media is a great way to increase visibility and build a stronger bond with your customers. But it can also be an easy way to make money. All you need to do is add a direct link to your menu in:

• The bio: On Facebook, you can customize the “Start Order” button with a link we provide, so customers can start their online order with just a single click. On Instagram and TikTok, you will have to add the same link in the restaurant’s bio with a powerful CTA, such as “Order our delicious food now->”

• The captions: Facebook is the only platform that allows you to add clickable links in the captions and comments. You can get the smart link from us and it to posts that showcase your delicious dishes.

Final words

These fast casual restaurant ideas will help you make your business stand out from the competitors and also create an amazing customer experience. When clients are satisfied, they not only return but also recommend your establishment online and to family and friends.