Popular fast-food chain shuts down its new restaurant brand

An employee prepares a burrito bowl at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on February 6. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Fast-food restaurant spinoffs rarely develop into huge successes. But popular chains still try to duplicate their successes by rolling out new concepts often based on their premier brand.

McDonald’s in December 2023 tested a new spinoff brand in Bolingbrook, Ill., called CosMc’s, a small format, beverage-led concept featuring refreshing drink creations and a small menu of food. Drinks include specialty lemonades and teas, indulgent blended beverages and cold coffee, including Sour Cherry Energy Slush, Tropical Spiceade and S’mores Cold Brew.

The food menu includes a Creamy Avocado Tomatillo Sandwich, Spicy Queso Sandwich, McPops filled donuts, Pretzel Bites, Savory Hash Brown Bites, soft serve Twist Cone, Caramel Fudge Brownie, Cookies, Caramel Fudge Brownie Sundae and McDonald’s classics, Egg McMuffins and M&Ms McFlurry.

The jury is still out on CosMc’s, but McDonald’s said in a statement at the time that it plans to open about 10 CosMc’s pilot locations by the end of 2024.

Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle in 2011 rolled out a new Southeast Asian menu concept, ShopHouse but shuttered the 17-unit chain in 2017. Then-Co-CEO Monty Moran said the chain failed to attract the same level of customer loyalty and repeat visits that Chipotle had, The Motley Fool reported at the time.

Next, Chipotle tried to compete in the pizza restaurant segment with its Pizza Locale chain in the Denver area, serving Neapolitan-style pizza. But in July 2023, Chipotle opted to close all five Pizza Locale locations.

After the closings of ShopHouse and Pizza Locale, Chipotle began developing Farmesa Fresh Eatery, a California-style inspired fresh eatery concept, similar to Sweetgreen. Farmesa served its meals in bowls, similar to Chipotle, with fresh ingredients.

The menu was developed by James Beard Award-winning Chef Nate Appleman, who is the director of Culinary Innovation for Farmesa. Appleman had previously led menu creations for Chipotle.

“One of our strategic objectives is to create or invest in emerging culinary spaces and restaurant concepts that fit within Chipotle’s food with integrity mission and make fresh food daily,” CEO Brian Niccol said in a statement when it launched. “Our New Ventures team, which was created in 2022, developed a unique restaurant concept that uses classic culinary techniques with flavorful ingredients in a fast casual setting that we’re excited to test and learn on before we determine a broader rollout strategy.”

The original Farmesa was located inside a Kitchen United, a ghost kitchen in Santa Monica, Calif., that could be picked up or delivered through DoorDash and Uber Eats or available via kiosk. The restaurant later moved to the company’s test kitchen Cultivate Center in Irvine, Calif.

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Chipotle dumps its Farmesa brand

Chipotle has given up and shut down its Farmesa Fresh Eatery concept that it launched in February 2023 to focus on developing its popular burrito and bowl restaurants into an iconic brand in the U.S. and worldwide.

While the company is no longer pursuing the development of the Farmesa brand, a Chipotle spokesperson told Restaurant Dive that it would incorporate learnings from the concept in future culinary innovation at Chipotle.

Chipotle’s CEO Brian Niccol in the company’s April 24 earnings call said “right now we are much more focused on just turning Chipotle into an iconic brand that I think it can be, not just in the U.S., but outside the U.S.” He said a second concept is not a focus area for the company at this time.