Photo: Hello Pasta
The Wall Street Journal reports that two international fast-food pasta chains are poised to enter the U.S. market. Are they Italian, you wonder? No, French.
Continued after the jump. With 10 American branches in the planning stages, Hello Pasta is the brainchild of Laurent and Frederick Lesort, veterans of the New York City restaurant scene, where their twin Frederick's restaurants -- one downtown and one uptown -- closed late last year. Their idea is to provide patrons on the run with a chance to pair sauces and pastas, priced from $6.95 to $12. The first Hello Pasta is slated to open on Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side this June. Other branches will be situated in Long Island and New Jersey, and the chain also hopes to locate in airports and other transportation terminals. Oddly enough, cheap domestic mix-and-match pasta chains were common in Manhattan a decade ago, especially on the Upper East Side, but most are now gone.
The other prospective fast-food chain is Nooi, which already boasts 50 locations in France. It takes a more international approach to pasta, offering sauces with Mexican and Indian flavors in addition to more predictable varieties, poured around a dozen types of pasta. According to founding partner Gregory Baratte, "Our goal is to be the Starbucks or Pinkberry of pasta." They plan on opening in July, in exactly the same part of Manhattan as Hello Pasta.
If the concept flies, maybe you can look for French pasta in your city soon.
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4-28-2010 @2:10PM Dick said... Noodle restaurants? Naw...I don't think so. Maybe in China or even Japan.. but NYC? I just don't see it getting very popular.
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4-28-2010 @2:45PM Sami said... You'd actually be surprised :D
4-28-2010 @4:12PM Chris said... I agree. Also, $6.95 - $12.00 for noodles? What a complete rip off.
4-28-2010 @5:05PM GingerRoot said... You don't live in a big city then. I'm in Chicago. We have a couple of successful Noodle chains that have been around for several years.
4-28-2010 @6:05PM Rick said... Eventhough it sounds a bit healthier.. i bet it still is high in calorie content.. that's why I have stopped eating out during the week.. i make my own food and then bring leftovers for lunch.. it's helped me watch what I eat better..but i didn't always know how to cook a dang thing.. then my gf bought me a hilarious and politically incorrect cookbook.. I can't tell you the name of it.. but google "whipped and beaten culinary works" to find it... but don't go if you can't take a good joke!
4-29-2010 @8:55AM linda said... isnt this just like the chain NOODLES?
4-29-2010 @9:16AM kevin said... If fast food noodles were going to be a hit, it would have already been done. Noodles are very easy and cheap.
4-29-2010 @2:06PM ines said... Why not noodles? There's a place in new york (i think it's ny) that just sells cereal. You can mix any combination of different cereals. From the looks of it, it does a good business.
4-29-2010 @7:08PM Patrick said... I agree, te U.S. won't embrace noodle restuarants...now , if you're talk'n' "Canoodle", Americans love to do that for sure. I know I do!
4-29-2010 @9:33PM Glassman96 said... I love pasta, but it has to be cooked just right, not mushy or sticky. For that price they better have some thing good in it. Some of the Chinese restaurants make their Lo-mein noodles sticky and mushy. We'll see I guess. Good Luck to them. - http://www.thehealthyweightlossdiet.com
4-29-2010 @8:57PM Glassman96 said... I love pasta, but it has to be cooked just right, not mushy or sticky. For that price they better have some thing good in it. Some of the Chinese restaurants make their Lo-mein noodles sticky and mushy. We'll see I guess. Good Luck to them. - thehealthyweightlossdiet.com
4-29-2010 @10:36PM charlec said... their is restraunts in st louis called the noodle company and other noodle restaurants around so think gain
4-30-2010 @5:05AM Al Schrader said... I love this French Noodles idea! Almost everything we eat is French - French Fries, French Dip, French Onion Soup, French Dressing, etc....Alfred-
6-02-2010 @2:21PM Emily said... Noodles & Company seems to be doing just fine.
4-28-2010 @2:13PM Dusty said... Hmmmmmmmm! A French fast food facility. Kind of wonder how this will go over with people in the US given that they changed French Fries to Freedom Fries and a lot of them just don't seem to like the French.
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4-28-2010 @4:06PM Rich said... Only paying back the French for their disdain of the USA!
4-28-2010 @6:16PM j said... Actually, I've never heard anyone call them 'freedom fries'. I thought it was old political humor used only by latenight talk shows.
4-30-2010 @4:12PM Royal said... Every italian restaurant is essentially a noodle shop. Look we extruded the exact same dough in another shape-tada a brand new dish. What a laugh that people think it wouldn't succeed. It already has. There are lots of noodle shops in metropolitan areas around the world.
I have to say the dislike of the French always seemed so odd to me. They supported this country's fight for independence. Go to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. There are only two painting of people in that hall--no presidents, just the King & Queen of France in gratitude for helping to free us from British rule. And then there was the Rwandan Genocides. Big brave us with our shock and awe military was a little gun shy after Somalia. What country believed stopping slaughtering over one million people, including hacking babies in their cribs with machetes to "cleanse" their country? The amazing U.S.,---uh no.... the only country I heard that sent a military response was France. Maybe it's the French's long standing reputation for diplomacy that seems so "cowardly" to the Tea=Party-ish crowd. Those that bring up WW2 might want to remember the F.Resistance was crucial in getting military information out of German occupied territories as well and returned Allied service men stranded behind enemy lines. When the invasion freed France, the french people raised 400,000 to fight in just three months. Almost as cowardly as anonymous internet posters.
I walked out of any place that served Freedom Fires. The same as I would if they used racist jokes about blacks, hispanics, or ethnic jokes about jews or muslims. If that's the best you can do in business--somebody else deserve my money.
4-29-2010 @10:44AM Donna said... Support anything French? NOT!!! Besides at that price I simply can't afford it.
4-29-2010 @8:27PM samantha said... A German chain is opening a Pizza Place on University Place and 13th Street and another German chain is opening tea place at Rockefeller Center.