When the clock strikes noon, swarms of office workers race down their elevators to head to their nearest Chipotle, Cava, or Sweet Green. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, they hobble back to their desk — perhaps the socialites head to the break room — and vigorously shake their compostable container until the smorgasbord is ready to be eaten by the forkful.
I work in an office now and “bowls” are a bigger part of my life than ever before. That’s not to say bowls haven’t been an integral part of my gastronomic landscape. The rise of Chipotle coalesced with my formative teenage years. And there are plenty of Vietnamese dishes that are best served in a mixed bowl fashion, such as bun thit nuong. Still, something is different about this rise of “bowls”, in quotations. Food bowls are not just dishes where food is in a bowl. They’re… something other.
Webster defines “Bowl” as…
Bowls are simultaneously growing more popular than ever before yet devoid of any identity as a distinct dish. To reconcile this, we must first define what we are talking about using a personal framework.
A food bowl is a dish where a mixture of individual ingredients is bound by herbs, spices, and sauces to create one synergistic flavor profile.
- There is almost always some type of grain as the carbohydrate, such as rice or quinoa.
- Leafy greens like spinach or lettuce help freshen up the base.
- You’ll then choose some type of protein — chicken, salmon, or tuna.
- Then comes bite-sized vegetables such as shredded carrots, corn, or chopped tomatoes.
- And finally, you’ll be asked for a sauce or two — garlic sauce, salsa, some ambiguous sesame drizzle.
Like magic, any ingredient can be mixed-and-matched to create a yummy bowl. It’s part of why every food bowl can be built from scratch and customized to our every whim. There is an enormous amount of effort behind every piece of chicken, scoop of rice, and drizzle of sauce to match with every other available ingredient. However, there comes a price with developing each menu item with a singular goal of being inoffensive.
The ability to become completely reimagined by any individual customer means that these bowls do not represent a singular experience or idea. If I were to enter a restaurant for the first time and see carbonara, samosas, or chilaquiles, I can quite easily envision what my order will look or taste like. I could recall what the dish tasted like the last time I ate it. I could very much wonder how this chef will spice up the recipe. However, a food bowl at a new Asian-inspired bowl place in the food court? There is no reference. These are not distinct dishes by any cuisine or culture. And any replication would simply be a completely different bowl from a completely different restaurant with their own thesis on their ideal flavor profile. The culinary identities of these bowls are wholly, inextricably rooted in the restaurant name. So, when I say I want a Chipotle bowl, I don’t want just any chipotle chicken and cilantro-lime rice dish. I want to be served specifically by the Chipotle corporation.
So, just to reiterate. A bowl is not just any dish served in a bowl. They are these magical mixtures to allow for endless combinations that all result in a winning formula for a tasty lunch. However, these mixtures are just that — mixtures. They’re not “real dishes” grounded by any rich cultural history. Rather, they are primarily, unabashedly, and deliciously products of food corporations.
Today, I intend to wrestle with two key questions: (1) why are these damn bowls so popular and (2) is this a net positive change to our foodscape?
It’s convenient.
Coming at number one of the list of reasons bowls are everywhere: bowls are stupidly convenient. Like I previously mentioned, I see them in the office all the time and for good reason. It takes no more than 15 minutes to walk across the street and pick up a bowl — even less time if you order on the app.
In America, we put a bigger emphasis on “lunch” than “break”. Our lunch breaks are considerably shorter than other countries. For example, in a 2016 survey, 43% of French workers would take a 45+ minute lunch. At the very same company, 51% of American workers would take a 15–30-minute lunch. And when Americans typically work 300 more hours per year compared to our French counterparts, leaving far less time to sit down at a restaurant or prep lunch the night before, it’s no wonder that our food options become optimized for more working hours.
And that’s not to say that working longer hours is directly correlated with shorter lunch breaks, either. Countries like Brazil typically observe a one-hour lunch while also working a standard 9am - 7pm. Nor can we say that shorter lunch breaks equate to higher productivity. Workers in Greece and Costa Rica often take 15-minute lunches like us, despite much lower GDP levels. Rather, the duration of our lunches is deeply rooted in the isolated, lonely hyper-capitalist environment itself.
In 2011, the number of professionals who say they typically eat lunch at their desks was around 20 percent. Now, more than 60 percent of professionals would share that sentiment. Ethnographer June Jo Lee found that about half of American workers eat lunch alone and many millennial workers self-reported to prefer eating alone. And not for lack of social skills. Some leading reasons were to multitask more efficiently, catch up on email, and get back to work. In other words, hunger is but a human inconvenience in today’s work environment. Alienation, as theorized by Karl Marx, is an isolating consequence of capitalism — both from the work itself and the people around us.
It’s affordable.
Cash is king. Housing prices have ballooned 116% since 1965. College tuition bills have skyrocketed 169% since 1980. Meanwhile, our paystubs have only been able to cobble up an extra 15% to 19% on average for the past forty to sixty years — years. We may never own a home or pay off our student loans, but at least bowls are pretty cheap.
According to the National Restaurant Association, menu prices have inflated by 8.6% increase from 2022 to 2023 —outpacing the national inflation rate. Chipotle bowls, in the same time, has only seen a menu price increase of 4%, half that of the restaurant industry and even lower than the economy as a whole. And compared to a 9% increase in grocery prices, a $9.90 Chipotle chicken bowl seem like a steal! Indeed, bowls are the more economical choice for many daytime diners.
This is especially true for those looking for a healthy lunch. These days, a burger, fries, and soda combo is, on average, upwards of $12. Five Guys — the most blameworthy of fast food chains, touts an average meal price of $19.95 — a 13.5% increase since 2021. For the same amount, one could purchase a bowl of complex carbs, fresh vegetables, and lean protein. Gone are the days when a burger was the go-to cheap meal. Now, there are healthy (or healthier) alternatives with much greater transparency in what’s entering your body.
Furthermore, bowls are an economical choice for restaurants seeking to innovate their menu options without buying additional ingredients and complicating their supply chain. Bowls at restaurants like Bartaco and True Food make up about 20% of their gross revenue. Cheap, trendy, and profitable — corporations are starting to implement bowls in places that should not be bowl-ified. Chains like California Pizza Kitchen, Red Lobster, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Dunkin’ Donuts all have bowls on their menus to varying degrees of success. Bowls have found their place on 30% more menus in the past year. Clearly, people can afford to buy them and corporations can afford to accommodate.
It’s customizable.
A few weeks ago, I dined at Curate — a tapas bar in Asheville— to find a couple things on the menu. Juicy mushroom fritters. Honey-glazed eggplant. And a myriad of wonderfully helpful symbols to accommodate various food preferences — gluten-free, vegetarian, seafood, nut-free (my personal favorite). In the modern era of inclusivity, food is no different.
Customizability may be the bowl’s best weapon in the battle against time. Future food trends may, too, optimize for convenience and affordability, but no dish lends itself to flexibility quite like the bowl. No cheese. Swap the sauce. Extra guacamole. The bowl doesn’t just accept changes — it explicitly puts the customer in the driver seat. And it’s a tricky little business trick.
The IKEA effect — that feeling where furniture from IKEA feels better or more valuable or more personal — is a powerful cognitive bias we get when we have a hand on the wheel. The consumer craves ownership. They yearn to be involved in the process because it makes food taste better. A Swedish study from 2018 found that diners who had an active role in the creation process were indeed more likely to find their food tastier and were more willing to pay for their food.
The emergence of apps and gamification have certainly enabled a far greater degree of customizability and convenience. After all, walking into a Sweetgreen may mean decision paralysis from the 40+ ingredients and 14 sauces— fourteen sauces — to choose from. Last December, digital sales alone made up 67% of Sweetgreen’s revenue. Exclusive digital offers. Loyalty rewards. And online-only menu items. It’s no wonder digital customers dined 1.5x more frequently and spent 20% more than non-digital patrons. Perhaps the good thing — aside from psychologically manipulating consumers to spend more— is that gamification does work to encourage healthier eating. A 2020 Turkish study recorded gamified menus reduced total calories by an average of about 100 calories. Certainly, the combination of laying out the ingredients of your meal and giving the agency to choose what eventually goes down is a winning one compared to the obfuscated practices of fast food (“pink sludge” McDouble, anyone?).
It’s comforting…?
The anxious millennial and disassociated Gen Z generations are ultimately looking to be welcomed and comforted. Bowls — ever the simple, accessible meal with words we innately understand (looking at you, fine dining menus with no pictures) — remind us of home-cooked meals. There are entire TikTok channels dedicated to bowl recipes and replications. Bowls are easy to make at home. You probably already do. So, of course it’d be nice to see a friendly face on the menu.
Seeing a friendly face too often, however, can be quite discomforting. When a community is at risk of gentrification, one would typically expect a Whole Foods or Starbucks or Chipotle to pop up sooner than later. Indeed, a Harvard study found that gentrification led to higher rates of closure within stores that sell goods— though surprisingly not services, like mechanics — such as grocery stores or restaurants. Rent prices are among a multitude of factors that push historically represented residents out of their homes, and big name-brand franchises can better absorb those costs.
The rise in bowl-ified cuisines and decline in “authentic” restaurants, however, is unique to an influx in rich, white residents. Brooklyn, for example, has a whopping twenty one Chipotle locations — comforting for white suburbanites but not for historically represented residents. The same does not hold true for Boyle Heights, a gentrifying area in Los Angeles where most of the incoming rich residents are Latino and closure rates remain insignificant. In other words, gentrification does not have to have a net-negative impact if we try to shop local (though, social programs like community trust funds would also be nice). Clearly, there is an important socio-cultural factor that complicates whether bowl places are welcome.
Furthermore, the inoffensive flavor profile so profitable in these newly white spaces have led to a gradual homogenization of different cuisines. Chipotle does not represent Mexican food any more than Pokeworks represents Hawaiian food. Not to mention the concoctions at fusion places that try to pull from a few too many cuisines — bulgogi is inescapable even in non-Korean Asian restaurants. And yet, these are the items that sell. These amalgamations of identity are co-opted by food corporations to make a familiar product. Were they not so delicious, I would dare call them the latest colonizers in the food space.
So, bowls… good or bad?
Honestly, I’ve never felt so conflicted about a dish. Sure, it’s affordable, tasty, healthy, and convenient for the constraints of today’s working environment. I appreciate its customizability, and I have no doubt that bowls have catapulted our food scene towards inclusivity. And I’m generally quite loving of most foods and forgiving of authenticity (re: I love General Tso’s chicken).
However, there’s something steely and ominous about bowl-ification creep. The corporate flavors that we grow so fondly of — CAVA, for me — lacks the guilty-pleasure aspect of traditional fast food like McDonald’s or Taco Bell. I don’t know if I would ask my coworkers to get some McChicken’s with me, but we’ll definitely get some Sweetgreen. We can be a bit more proud of bowl places because they’re healthier and trendier and feel more ethnic. And the worst part is that we, as a whole, eat it up, ahead of local restaurants within our communities. That’s the danger that binds us.
Perhaps, I would say that I will personally continue to eat at bowl places during the work day, should they be the most convenient option. They’re incredibly functional. However, I will refuse to go on my own time — especially when I can eat local and try some new, real dishes.
