The Lunch Triangle
Leaving aside the ubiquitous burger, the trusty trio of soups, salads and sandwiches form a sort of isosceles lunch triangle — with the sandwich at the peak — that dominates almost every daytime menu in QSR, casual and even fine-dining restaurants. More than ever before, lunch items are developed by considering prep speed, nutritional content, cost, portability, packaging, presentation, flavour, variety, ethnic diversity, food allergies, temperature, seasonality, organic and locally sourced product, changeability, freshness, authenticity and freedom from additives. Overwhelmed? You should be. Sating the modern lunch crowd — an increasingly demanding, food-savvy beast — is no easy feat.
Montreal’s Café Santropol solved the problem when it opened 31 years ago. “We’ve got a formula,” says co-owner Jennifer Luczynski. “Trends? There’s always a new trend but we’d rather be independent, and [remain] who we are.” The Mon-treal Mirror’s 2007 reader’s poll voted its sandwiches the best in the city. The café is known for its signature spread and its sandwiches are served on dark multi-grain bread. The formula pairs upscale comfort food, with nutritious, innovative and high quality ingredients.
Once upon a time people may have choked on the dough if a sandwich bill came to $9. Not anymore. According to Linda Strachan, senior account manager at NPD Group Inc., consumers are willing to pay more for premium ingredients. “We’re seeing more interesting breads and condiments…there are more incidences of wraps, pitas and breads like ciabatta.”
And it’s not just a trend at kitschy cafés. Subway, with 2,269 locations in Canada alone, has a menu that constantly evolves. Starting in 2000, Subway began introducing gourmet breads. “We were trying to bring everything up a notch,” says Les Winograd, Subway’s PR coordinator. An Italian herb and cheese loaf was launched in 2003, and a honey oat and wheat bun was recently added to the menu. Even casual-dining restaurants like Earls, a western Canadian chain, began serving most of its sandwiches on ciabatta bread. “It’s about quality. When a ciabatta’s done right, it really improves the sandwich,” says Nick DiVincenzo, a regional chef with Earls.
At Finch’s Tea and Coffee House in Vancouver, listed by Vancouver.com as one of the city’s top five sandwich spots, only artisan baguettes are used. Toronto’s Fast Fresh Foods at Commerce Court offers a choice of six Ace Bakery breads, and The Sandwich Box, another Hogtown hot-spot, has a whopping selection, with six by Fred’s Bread and 12 from Ace.
As important as the quality to customers, is the treatment of the bread. Most spots now offer at least some variation of a warmed sandwich, which adds to its perceived value and simply makes it taste better.
Both the Sandwich Box and Fast Fresh Foods serve sandwiches grilled, calling them panini. But don’t confuse panini with panino (the word for sandwich in Italian, and not traditionally grilled), like the panino muffaletta on the menu at Toronto’s Bar Italia. The word panini is proprietary, named for the press used to grill sandwiches. “In Halifax, panini were almost unheard of two years ago,” says Dawn Joyce, co-owner of the East Coast city’s two-year-old Beansprout Cafe. A supplier of theirs said panini were popular on the West Coast so they decided to try them — and their lunch crowd has increased ever since. This year the Coast weekly recognized Beansprout as having the top grilled sandwiches in Halifax.
Even when heated, sandwiches must be made fast — an important feature for lunch-hour regulars. Subway’s countertop ovens can roast a sandwich in less than 40 seconds, so it’s no secret why its total Canadian sales in 2006 were US$858 million, compared to US$701 million in 2004. Sub sales continue to grow, but Strahan says there’s increasing competition from other restaurants wanting to capitalize on sandwich success. “Sandwiches have the appeal of freshness, they are perceived to be healthier, are easy to customize and are the ultimate portable meal.”
Jamie Smith, owner and chef of Finch’s, says his 16-seat café serves around 200 lunches a day, primarily takeout sandwiches. At Earls, sandwiches make up 20 per cent of the chain’s total sales. Abdi Ghotb, chef and co-owner of the Sandwich Box — where customers individualize sandwiches by choosing toppings from a selection of breads, fillings, garnishes and condiments — says they’re adding two new locations to the current two to keep up with demand. The single-unit Fast Fresh Foods, also a make-your-own-style outlet, will be opening two new locations in the near future. Owner Ben Geddes says sales have increased 50 per cent since last year. Upscale, quality sandwiches are also a staple on the lunch menu of many fine-dining restaurants. Rafael Gonzalez, chef of the posh Season’s restaurant at Vancou-ver’s Four Seasons hotel, says he caters to the local business crowd, doing around 220 lunch covers a day. Starting at $16 a pop, his sandwiches are a popular choice.
Choice is the operative word when it comes to a great sandwich. But the most frequently ordered fillers in all types of restaurants are veggie options or chicken. Chicken is low in fat and high in protein and its versatility is part of appeal, appearing in combinations such as Subway’s sweet chicken teriyaki or the Beansprout’s chicken BLT.
But the bird’s popularity doesn’t stop foodservice professionals from getting creative with other ingredients. One of Finch’s most popular baguettes is Brie Bleau ($8.25), with sliced pear, prosciutto and roasted walnuts; Beansprout serves a unique cheddar and peach chutney panini ($6.95) with fresh peaches and curry mayo; Chef Gonzalez’s Cuban sandwich ($18) is a beloved menu addition; and Earls offers a Vietnamese steak sandwich ($13.25) with pickled veggies, a special sauce, mayo and mozzarella, which DiVincenzo says was introduced last fall. “Some people shy away from the ingredients but once they have it they’re hooked.” He adds there are also customers who won’t experiment. At Beansprout, Joyce says that’s common. “People tend to have their favorite — they try something and stick to it.”
On the other hand, customers who love to experiment are flocking to make-your-own-style gourmet sandwich shops. Ghotb says when they opened the first Sandwich Box in 2003, no other Toronto restaurant was doing it. Perhaps, but in Stratford, Ont., Susie Palach and Tracy Day, owners of York Street Kitchen, were ahead of the curve. Customers have literally lined up for their gourmet, build-your-own creations since they opened in 1996.
In 2005, Geddes hopped on the gourmet do-it-yourself wagon after spending time in New York, where the trend was everywhere. He says he loved the idea of high-quality, healthy food served in a fast environment. “People like to be their own chef. The days of being told what’s in their food are over.”
Geddes may be on to something, and not just in the sandwich world. Make-your-own salad bars are rapidly multiplying. At Fast Fresh Foods, which has 52 items on its salad bar ($6.50 for greens with eight toppings and a dressing — extra charges apply to gourmet ingredients), Geddes says his salad and sandwich sales are almost evenly split. At the Sandwich Box, the 50-item-plus salad bar, priced by weight, sells very well, though Ghotb says sandwiches still come out on top. And national chain Select Sandwich recently began offering customers a chance to create their own salads from more than 70 fresh ingredients. Priced at $6.99, it’s not cheap, but president Brian Kahn says salad sales have increased since the program launched.
Lettuce Eatery in Toronto, another well-known gourmet salad and soup bar, has expanded to three locations since it opened in 2005. And the city’s newest lunch spot, Salad Spa, follows the same make-your-own model, offering salads, wraps and soups, with prices slightly lower ($4.99 for a small salad, $5.99 for a large, with unlimited toppings but proteins extra) to target a more mainstream customer base. Open for just a few months, it already serves around 150 lunches a day. There are more than 70 ingredients on the salad bar. “The clientele enjoy having selection. Most restaurants dictate to people what they can have on their salads,” says Robin Edelstein, co-owner.
When it comes to soup, people don’t seem to mind relinquishing a little control, as long as it meets high standards: no unnecessary additives (don’t thicken with starch), minimal fat (olive oil, not butter and easy on the cream), water or veg stock (vegetarian and vegan appeal), and the freshest ingredients. In fact, people flock to places that use home-style or old family recipes. Asian flavours are particularly successful. Mulliga-tawny sells out daily at Toronto’s Esther’s Soup Kitchen. Customers won’t let Gonzalez take his Thai-inspired squash soup off the menu. At Santropol, the curried lentil soups are the top sellers and at Soupesoup in Montreal, owner Caroline Dumas says customers love her spicy creations.
And then there’s the pho-nomenon sweeping Toronto. The Vietnamese soups have practically developed a cult following. Toronto’s Pho Hung, which opened its first location in 1986, gets busier every year. Owner Dacthoi Nguyen says more than half of his clientele is now non-Asian. Across town in the west end, the 15-year-old Golden Turtle is experiencing a similar evolution in its customer base. The last three years have been very busy, says assistant manager Linda Nguyen, whose parents own the restaurant. “It’s [pho] an experiment for customers.” But both she and Dacthoi say the biggest reason for pho’s increasing popularity is because it’s versatile and healthy.
There’s no doubt Asian flavours are big sellers, but soup lovers still need variety. Dumas offers four or five choices a day ($4.95 for 12 oz. or $5.95 for 16 oz.), rotating between nearly 100 different recipes. Nathalie Barin, owner and chef of the six-month-old Le Bar à Soup in Toronto, features three different daily soups (small $3.50, medium $4.25 and large $4.99), running the same weekly menu for a month. And though Strachan points out soup sales are down seven per cent from last year, places like Dumas’ and Barin’s are packed with regulars.
And that’s the best part about lunch for many operators — it’s habitual. Doing it right breeds loyal customers. “People come in for good health and comfort food,” Dumas says. “Most of my customers come in every day. It’s easy to work when you eat something so easy to digest.”