Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Newport Beach, Calif.–based fast-casual chain founded by Steve Ells in 1993, has had a remarkable 31-year arc that has seen it become a top 10 restaurant chain in the U.S. while redefining both fast food and Mexican cuisine this side of the Rio Grande River.
Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the company wants in on the restaurant industry’s next big thing: Mediterranean fast casual.
In October, Chipotle announced that its $100 million Cultivate Next venture fund — which makes “early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further Chipotle's mission to Cultivate a Better World,” according to the company — had made a minority investment in Brassica Sandwiches & Salads, a Mediterranean fast casual based in Columbus, Ohio, with the intent of helping it scale to new markets.
“Investing in emerging culinary concepts that align with Chipotle's commitment to using real, fresh ingredients and making craveable food daily is consistent with our mission to Cultivate a Better World,” said Nate Lawton, chief business development officer at Chipotle, in announcing the deal. “Funding from Cultivate Next's minority investment will help Brassica scale to open new locations and expand to new markets.”
That Chipotle invested in a horse in a race that has so far been largely dominated by CAVA was perhaps not as surprising as the horse Chipotle picked: a relatively unknown concept with six locations between Columbus and Cleveland.
Surprising, that is, only to those who don’t know Brassica’s founding team.
Started by husband-and-wife duo Kevin and Katy Malhame, alongside Kevin’s brother Darren Malhame, Brassica opened its first location in Columbus’s Short North neighborhood in 2015. The Malhames had previously opened Northstar Café — a casual, all-day concept that now has six Ohio locations — and upscale bistro Third and Hollywood, leaning into Kevin Malhame’s experience working for Hillstone Restaurant Group and Katy Malhame’s work at Cameron Mitchell Restaurants.
Hillstone, in particular, was a reference point for the Malhames’ intense focus on high-quality ingredients and hospitality.
“They're a company that is pretty uncompromising on the quality of their build outs, the quality of their ingredients, the quality of their service, [and] the consistency of their execution,” Kevin Malhame said during a recent interview over lunch at Brassica’s location in Columbus’s Easton development. “And at the same time, they're by no means trying to be everything to everybody. They're very focused.”
Brassica pita sandwich, pink drink, and fries
A similar commitment to quality had helped turn Northstar into something of a Columbus institution, opening a handful of locations in the Ohio capital between 2004 and 2015. That concept boasts bigger floorplans; diverse menus featuring the likes of sandwiches, bowls, salads, and brick-oven pizzas and entrées; a hybrid service model where food is delivered to tables after being ordered at the counter; and even, in some locations, live jazz each night.
But when an iconic piece of real estate with a smaller footprint opened down the street from Northstar’s Short North location in 2015, the partners knew they wanted to try their hand at a new concept with more of a traditional fast-casual model.
Their inspiration? Chipotle, of course.
“Even going back to the ’90s when Chipotle was doing its thing, it was obvious that there was a real genius to the service model, right?” Malhame said. “And for us, it was a very natural type of service model to adopt because it's simple and it's fast, but it’s highly customizable, which in this day and age — where there are so many folks with food sensitivities and allergies and diet preferences — it's really nice to have a menu that's totally customized.”
As its tagline suggests, Brassica’s menu revolves around sandwiches — organic pitas filled with a guest’s choice of fillings — and salads with a choice of greens, grains, and fillings. There is also a hummus plate available, with a side of pita and choice of toppings.
For the main filling, guests choose from among falafel, slow-roasted chicken shawarma, braised beef brisket, or house-pickled veggies like eggplant, roasted carrots, and cauliflower. To round out the toppings, they can choose from among a lineup that includes hummus, baba ghanoush, crispy onions, pita chips, pickled veggies, and a variety of sauces. Fries, pita, or a chocolate chip cookie can complete the meal, as can beer, wine, or multiple house-made beverages.
Categorizing Brassica simply as a Mediterranean fast casual doesn’t quite do it justice. While the food is certainly influenced by his family’s Lebanese heritage, Malhame said the menu pulls inspiration from the entire Mediterranean region and even beyond. The impetus for the menu wasn’t necessarily family recipes but instead a falafel in Paris that once blew Malhame away.
The goal, he said, is not to try to win a category or go head-to-head with a brand like CAVA.
The goal is to serve great food with great hospitality. Over and over and over again.
“I think if we're going to win long-term, it's not going to be because we're in Mediterranean food any more than Chick-fil-A is winning long-term because they're in fried chicken,” he said. “Chick-fil-A is winning long-term because their service, their execution, their friendliness, their consistency is way better. Chipotle isn’t winning because they're Mexican. They're winning because their food's delicious and their vibe and their brand has always been great; their ingredients have been great.”
As for the vibe at Brassica, it’s less industrial fast-casual and more like entering someone’s home. Ingredients showcased in the make-line are served not out of sterile stainless steel but out of more traditional serving dishes. Dining rooms feature custom walnut seating, marble-topped tables, and soft brass hardware and fixtures, plus wood ceilings and even original, vegetable-inspired artwork.
Malhame gestures to the packed dining room at the Easton location in explaining how the overall experience, one where people feel encouraged to sit in and eat rather than just take away, is different from most fast casuals.
“It's important that when you sit down at the table and you touch the table, that it not be some fake piece of plastic or some synthetic laminate,” Malhame said. “And that's why we use … block wood, real marble, real leather, so that the human part of the experience, the tactile part of the experience, is consistent with the ingredients.”
Chipotle, of course, is no stranger to fostering the growth of emerging restaurant brands — with not-so-favorable results. That included house-launched brands like ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, Tasty Made, and the virtual Farmesa, as well as the acquisition Pizzeria Locale. All of those concepts have closed.
Brassica's Westlake Cleveland location
Brassica, however, is unique in that Chipotle does not have a controlling interest. The investment is the first in a restaurant concept from the Cultivate Next fund, which launched in 2022 and has so far focused on tech start-ups.
The decision to accept Chipotle’s investment, Malhame said, was a no-brainer because that company is more interested in a long-term partnership rather than the short-term return that many investors look for.
“All of those [investors] have a finite timeline and are working towards a return on their capital,” he said. “[Chipotle’s] motives are way different. … They have an opportunity to potentially have another really successful brand in their organization long-term.”
Of course, the decision was also easy because of the caliber of Chipotle’s operation and the access it provides Brassica to world-class restaurant experts. Malhame likens the partnership to what Chipotle received from McDonald’s when it received a major investment from the Golden Arches in 1998. While that partnership was relatively short-lived — McDonald’s was fully divested by 2006 — it did catapult Chipotle into the mainstream, helping the brand scale from 16 to over 500 locations.
Twenty years ago, with help from McDonald’s, Chipotle proved that higher-quality sourcing and service could be scaled to hundreds and later thousands of locations. Malhame believes the same can be true of Brassica, with help from Chipotle.
“It is scalable as long as your training systems, your people systems, your processes support the scalability,” he said. “We've taken our time to make sure we cultivate the right systems and the right training systems and practices so that it is scalable. I've been doing this for 20 years; I would not be partnering with Chipotle if we couldn't deliver on the promise of that partnership.”
While it’s tantalizing to consider the potential ahead of Brassica and the possibility that it could become a heavyweight in the fast-casual Mediterranean category, Malhame isn’t getting distracted. After all, he learned better than that while at Hillstone.
“Our attitude is to just keep our heads down and keep doing the things we're doing, which is creating loved restaurant experiences one guest at a time,” he said. “[It’s] making sure the food is great, the execution is great; continuing to strengthen our operations [and] culture; and making sure we've got the pipeline of great future restaurant leaders that we need to grow at a healthy speed.
“That's what we were doing before,” he added, “but now we can do it with a little more confidence.”
