Menu Changes for FBC
Dear F ire Bowl Café Customer,
First of all, thank you for your patronage. We have enjoyed serving our customers since 1996 and we value customers like you that come Fire Bowl Café restaurants. We are looking forward to continuing to serve our current customers and to being able to grow our business in the Texas and Colorado markets.
We are continuously evaluating our business and our competition in the quick, casual dining space to ensure we can keep our business healthy, ready to serve and ready to grow. Steady increases in product costs and increases in competitive wage rates over the past 2 years have required us to make product and price changes. As an example, chicken prices have increased over 50% in just the past year. To respond to these changes, we have designed a number of updates to our product mix that will allow us to meet our business objectives while still delivering a good value, superior quality product and positive dining experience for our customers.
These changes are effective June 2007. The attached Frequently Asked Questions provide additional information on what changes have been made and why. If you have additional questions or feedback please feel free to talk with one of our restaurant Managers or you can email us directly info@firebowlcafe.com.
Thank you again for your patronage. We are looking forward to our future and seeing you at Fire Bowl Café.
Best Regards,
Fire Bowl Café Owners
Fire Bowl Café Menu Change - Frequently Asked Questions
Why did you change the menu?
There were a number of factors. We have added some exciting new menu items. We removed low selling products and products with sourcing issues to improve overall quality and freshness of our product offerings. We increased prices to cover higher operating costs, a change that is consistent with increases made by other fast casual restaurants in the market.
What is new on the menu?
We have improved our salad offering by providing more vegetables and goodies in the salad. Our dressing options include Sweet Curry, a NEW Asian Citrus or Sesame.
There is a new vegetarian 3 flame Fire Sauce on the Stir Fry Your Way menu that is guaranteed to get your tongue sizzling! Our new Fire Noodles dish will do the same with a mix of wide rice noodles, chicken, pineapple, carrot, yellow and green onion and bean sprouts tossed in the wok with Fire Sauce.
We are also offering a new Orange Peel Chicken dish. Chicken, bell peppers and green onion in a savory sauce that is a bit spicy with the perfect amount of orange flavor. This dish is served over your choice of rice or noodles.
Why did you increase your prices in Texas?
Food costs, especially for fresh meats and vegetables, have been steadily increasing. For example, chicken has increased over 50% in the past year. In addition, competitive wage rates and general operating expenses have been steadily increasing as well. Our Colorado stores have been operating with the new prices for a year. We also needed to adjust our Texas prices to cover the cost increases incurred there so that we did not have to compromise product quality or portion sizes.
Why do you not offer Salmon options anymore?
It has been difficult to source a consistent, quality salmon product at a reasonable price. And it has been a low selling item compared to other main ingredient choices. The salmon stir fry, salmon soba and salmon salad will continue to be available until September 1, 2007 for $8.85, $8.85 & $8.50 respectively while the product is being phased out.
Why are you not offering cashews anymore?
We replaced cashews with roasted peanuts to eliminate carrying a costly inventory item that is used on a limited basis in only one dish on the menu.
Why do you not offer the buckwheat soba anymore?
The soba noodles are being discontinued due to low sales volumes and high product cost. Soba noodles will continue to be available until September 1, 2007 for an additional $1.00 charge while the product is being phased out.
Why do you not offer the udon anymore?
The udon noodle is still available in the Japanese Udon Soup and by special request in the Stir Fry Your Way for an additional $1.00 charge.