Profit in All-Day Breakfast

According to the market research firm NPD Group, McDonald’s restaurants have reaped some real benefits from their decision to offer breakfast all day. Surveys done at the participating stores found that the customers who purchased breakfast items at non-traditional hours had, for the most part, not visited their McDonald’s store in the month prior. McDonald’s was able to prove that the uptick in sales and new customers was in fact due to the all-day breakfast offerings.

This is also supported by a National Restaurant Association survey, in which 70% of Americans reported that they wish that restaurants would serve breakfast all day long.

In the past, restaurants and convenience stores have stayed away from offering both due to the difficulty of using the same cooking equipment for both menus, as well as keeping quality high and ticket times low.  

However, recent advances in technology have increased operator’s abilities to expand their menus. These advances have led to products like ventless cooking equipment, counter top ovens and induction ranges, “set and forget it” touch screen conveyor ovens, speed ovens, and fast start-up speed grills that deliver food in seconds as opposed to minutes. Fryers with larger capacities and smaller equipment designed to maximize output in less space provide additional benefits and make it easier to offer breakfast all day.

 

The best way to ensure your all-day breakfast is a success is to devise your breakfast menu to function within your space and equipment. To put that another way, before you add a breakfast item to your menu, consider the equipment and the space that equipment will need to offer the item. Will the food item need to be held in a warmer? Will it need a specialized piece of equipment to cook, or can it be cooked with equipment that's used for cooking other food items? This will make creating an all-day breakfast menu much more feasible.

If put together correctly, this can lead to faster cooking times, less unnecessary equipment space, and less required labor. Add that to creating customer goodwill by offering them what they want, and your profits could certainly increase.