New plant-based fastfood restaurant Kernel opened in New York City

12-4-2024

Kernel Foods is a hybrid hospitality and technology company that designed and built a novel operating system for restaurants. The company uses the system at its wholly owned brick-and-mortar restaurants in NYC. By reducing waste and friction, they usher in significant improvements in hospitality, food quality, employee satisfaction, and restaurant economics. Plant-based fastfood restaurant Kernel is an idea of Steve Ells, now CEO. He also built Chipotle Mexican Grill from a single restaurant to a global business.

We wrote about the announcement of this concept in our trends we spotted week 46 2023. One of those concepts highly on our list to visit if we go to NYC!  

3 minutes read

Environmentally friendly and efficient

This new take on fast-casual is designed to be environmentally friendly and more efficient in its operations, requiring leaner staff with the assistance of automation. By leveraging a hub-and-spoke model, Kernel’s restaurants require a much smaller footprint and consume significantly less energy than a conventional restaurant. This hyper-efficient, novel operating platform allows the Kernel team to make each meal to order, accurately and timed down to the minute. Guests get exactly what they ordered precisely when they want it, and in doing that, Kernel is able to streamline food preparation and minimize food waste. Additionally, Kernel’s entirely plant-based menu has a notably smaller carbon footprint than animal-based analogues. With store employee enrichment central to its mission, Kernel is offering its employees compensation above industry norms, a comprehensive benefits package, and flexible schedules in addition to a stock option plan and ongoing seminars and education. Kernel’s first location opened in 315 Park Avenue South on Manhattan on February 12, 2024. The concept will expand across New York City in its first two years of operation. The are open from Monday till Friday from 11am-3pm.

Menu: Kernel values feeding people great plant-based food in a convenient, easy, and predictable way. Offering the kind of food people want to eat every day, Kernel is an accessible and delicious entry point for incorporating more plant-based food into people’s lives. Menu highlights include:

• Kernel Burger – Roasted veggie patty (made with sweet potato, quinoa and chickpeas) with salsa verde and pickled onions on a toasted brioche bun
• Crispy Chicken Sandwich – Crispy cutlet with classic slaw on a toasted brioche bun
• Kernel Salad – Kale, radicchio, hummus and lentils with herb-mustard dressing
• Roasted Carrots – Farro, spiced almonds and salsa verde
• Crunchy Cucumbers – Wild rice, cashews, basil and chili jam
• Marinated Beets – Quinoa, super-seed crunch and green hummus
• Crispy Potatoes – Thrice cooked with choice of salsa verde, chipotle mayo or ketchup
• Chocolate Chunk Cookie – Olive oil and dark chocolate, toasted wheat and flaky salt
• Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Cookie – Toasted oats and walnuts with raisins and vanilla bean

Digital ordering system

Kernel’s digital ordering system allows guests to place their orders from wherever they want, simply by visiting www.eatkernel.com or by downloading the Eat Kernel app, available for both iOS and Android. Orders are fulfilled in the sequence with which they were placed; customers are assigned a pick-up time (that is accurate to the minute) when they place their orders. This accuracy is possible because Kernel has re-engineered the ordering and preparation process from start to finish. Restaurant teams prepare guest orders assisted by Kernel’s bespoke automation and technology. Then, as soon as an order is ready for pick up, guests are notified via text or email.

Once at Kernel, guests can use their mobile device to unlock a secure, personalized cubby and get their food. Most guests are in and out in less than a minute.

Plant-based fastfood restaurant Kernel is an idea of Steve Ells

Steve Ells, CEO has centred his career around the idea that food served fast can be both innovative and delicious. Having built Chipotle Mexican Grill from a single restaurant to a globally recognized, $40 billion business during his 27 year tenure as Founder/CEO, Steve is uniquely poised to create another industry-changing restaurant. Steve created Kernel in 2023 – the newest iteration of the fast casual restaurant designed to address some of the clear inefficiencies in the existing restaurant model. Steve holds degrees from both the University of Colorado and the Culinary Institute of America. He worked at Jeremiah Tower’s Stars restaurant in San Francisco in the early 1990s before opening the first Chipotle in Denver in 1993. When Steve began developing Kernel in 2020, he tapped Andrew Black to be Chief Culinary Officer. Stephen Goldstein is President and Eric Wilson is Chief Operating Officer.

Website: EatKernel

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