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Comment by JimmyM | Hacker News Reader

This seems relevant to this post - http://stratechery.com/2013/obsoletive/ - that's often been posted on Hacker News about obsoletive vs. disruptive technology.

I see this as Chipotle offering what is effectively an obsoletive product - fast food that's cheap but also has some valuable nutritional content - compared with McDonald's, who were capable of offering a highly disruptive low-end product in an environment where there was an information asymmetry.

I find this interesting because, to me, it's a demonstration that themes of obsolescence and disruption can apply to much more than just pure tech businesses.

I've never eaten at Chipotle myself (do we even have them in the UK?), but wow this is some great PR for them. Reminds me of when everyone just happened to start raving about Nando's a while back. Kudos to whoever set this up.

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Remember that McDonald's was just as disruptive in the 1960s when they introduced the quick-service model (what we call fast food today), replacing the drive-in and diner. By standardizing ingredients, cooking methods, presentation, menu, etc, the company was able to keep the product consistent across an entire nation. That was revolutionary in itself.

But choices were simple in 1952. McDonald's original menu had, what, 4 items on it? Burger, cheeseburger, fries, drink. People didn't want customization so it was easy to assemble an order in a bag in under 30 seconds.

People want more choices now. It's why McDonald's is struggling to keep up. Their systems, multiple generations more advanced than before, can handle it but only to a certain degree.

Chipotle has found a way to address this desire for choice by bringing back what really is a buffet line. The innovation is that they found a way to streamline that into a fixed set of choices (Burrito or Bowl? Meat or chicken?) that avoids the line turning into a slow moving nightmare of indecisive lookers like you get at a typical wedding reception or church dinner.

It was interesting to read in the article how McD's wanted to solve Chipotle's problems with technology, when really those weren't huge problems at all. It shows the difference in culture.

That is interesting!

I like the way you present the Chipotle/buffet as a set of choices too - it seems to make choice into almost a data structure issue. Like Chipotle are succeeding partly because they're presenting people with a binary search tree rather than an undifferentiated cluster of choices.

>>People want more choices now. It's why McDonald's is struggling to keep up. Their systems, multiple generations more advanced than before, can handle it but only to a certain degree.

This narrative doesn't explain why In 'n Out is very popular. They have five items on their menu. http://www.in-n-out.com/menu.aspx

(They also have a secondary menu, yes, but that's more for stylings and extras.)

Then let's call it more customization options.

I would describe it as McDonald's offering a very wide and shallow menu, while Chipotle/Five Guys/In-n-Out offer a very narrow but deep menu.

McDonald's is experimenting with touchscreen kiosks to let you decide from a list of burger topping options.

> Meat or chicken?

Is there something I don't know about Chipotle's chickens?

I meant "steak", sorry.

> do we even have them in the UK?

We do indeed, they opened their first branches a few years ago. There are now six locations in London.

I'm not really a fan of burritos but the people in my office seem to like the bowls.

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