ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen

ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Restaurants
Founded	September 2011
Founder	Steve Ells
Number of locations	10 (April 2015)[1]
Area served	California, Illinois, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
Key people	Steve Ells Nate Appleman Tim Wildin
Parent	Chipotle Mexican Grill
Website	shophousekitchen.com

Lunch bowl and fountain soda from ShopHouse

ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, or simply ShopHouse, is an American restaurant chain specializing in Southeast Asian cuisine. Its name derives from the shophouse, a common building type in urban Southeast Asia. The first ShopHouse opened in September 2011 in Washington, D.C. As of April 2015, there are a total of ten ShopHouse locations, in California, Maryland, and D.C. ShopHouse is owned and operated by Chipotle Mexican Grill, and uses a similar serving format.^[2]

History

The first ShopHouse opened on Connecticut Avenue, in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Opened on September 15, 2011, the location was intended to test consumer response before further expansion.^[3] After almost two years, the second ShopHouse, the first on the West Coast, opened in Hollywood on June 17, 2013.^[4][5]

In the last half of 2013, four new locations were quickly opened, two on each coast. A second D.C. location in Georgetown was opened in August.^[6] In October, a second Los Angeles-area location was opened in Santa Monica^[7] and also a location in Maryland opened in Bethesda^[8] on the other side of the country. At the end of 2013, a location in Westwood, Los Angeles was opened in December.^[9]

Three D.C.-area locations were opened in 2014; in D.C. Chinatown in May;^[10][11] at The Mall in Columbia in the D.C. suburb of Columbia, Maryland, as part of that mall's expansion;^[2][12] and at Union Station in D.C. in November.^[13][14]

After quite a bit of activity in 2014, a D.C.-area location in North Bethesda^[15] was opened in Maryland in March 2015 to make a total of 10 ShopHouse locations by the end of March 2015.

It was announced in May 2015 that the first location in the Midwest is planned to be opened in the Chicago Loop during Fall 2015.^[16][17][18] A further announcement was later made in October stating that a location in Schaumburg, Illinois, is planned to be open in November with another location is planned to be open in downtown Chicago in December.^[19][20]

Concept development

The ShopHouse concept was primarily developed by Chipotle's director of concept development Tim Wildin, who was born in Bangkok and spent all of his childhood summers there. Wildin had been working in the marketing department at Chipotle and realized that if he could follow Chipotle’s business model and combine it with his knowledge of traditional Southeast Asian cuisine, he could bring the taste of his homeland to the American masses. Culinary manager Nate Appleman was responsible for developing some recipes and the procedures to produce the final product. Wildin was responsible with the look of the facilities, the locations of the restaurants, and marketing. ^{[21][22][23][24]}

In 2014, The Motley Fool noted that Chipotle was expanding the ShopHouse concept rather slowly when compared with the expansion of Noodles & Company during the same time period.^[25] A writer for MarketWatch commented in 2015 that some of the procedures that Chipotle had developed for providing affordable quality burritos quickly "may not work with other cuisines".^[26] As of 2015, there has been on the average three new ShopHouses are opened each year while there has been 150 new Chipoles are opened annual during the same time period, or nearly three opens per week.^[27]

ShopHouse defended their decision of having a relatively slow roll out by responding to their critics that they are still trying to shape the brand by getting everything done right before they duplicate the procedures and replicate it in a new location. In this way, they would like to provide great products in an efficient and cost effective manner that would entice customers to return frequently.^[28][29]

Tom Sietsema of The Washington Post called ShopHouse "one of the best fast food ideas in years." ^[30]

The reviewer for Midtown Lunch said the food as not as sweet as overly sweet foods found in the heavily Americanized Asian chain restaurants, but closer to the authentic cuisines.^[31] The reviewer also said he the food is spicy than what one would expect from a chain, great for people who enjoy spicier foods (and a wall full of additional hot sauces for person who don't think the food is spicy enough) but not so great for people who want relatively bland foods.^[31] The downside to the concept is that the flavors could easily get "muddled" by selecting the wrong combinations of components.

Like Chipotle, ShopHouse restaurants are company-owned, rather than franchised.^[32] Its competitors include Panda Express, P. F. Chang's, Pick Up Stix,^[33] and to a small extent Noodles & Company.^[25]

Menu

ShopHouse food is mostly inspired by Malaysian, Thai, and Vietnamese cuisine.^[33][34] Customers start with a base of chilled rice noodles, jasmine rice, brown rice, or salad and choose meat (or tofu), a vegetable, a sauce, a garnish, and a topping. The restaurant provides several suggested combinations.^[35] Some ShopHouse locations serve Southeast Asian beer, such as Beerlao, Chang, and Singha.

Initially, the restaurant served bánh mì in addition to bowls, but the sandwiches were quickly dropped a few months later^[36] after receiving mostly negative reviews on the quality of bread that was being used^[37] and ShopHouse's inability to find a dependable supplier of decent bread.^[27]

Unlike Chipotle, ShopHouse vary the ingredients available to their customers by adding seasonable vegetables to their menu that is depended on local availability, such as kale,^[11] summer squash,^[38] butternut squash,^[39][40] parsnips,^[41] and collard greens.^[41]

In 2014, ShopHouse began to offer their first dessert, a coconut rice and mango parfait.^[12]

References

External links

• Official website