It’s Foodie Friday and the topic this week is brunch. You might not have noticed, but having breakfast late is a thing. In fact, many restaurants are adding a specific brunch menu while all-day breakfast has contributed mightily to McDonald’s improved financial results. Consumer research shows the growth of brunch service in restaurants around the country as customers enjoy breakfast foods all day and night long.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
According to its 2017 MenuTrends report, Datassential reveals brunch was available at 4.9 percent of all chain and independent restaurants in the United States in 2016, compared to 2.0 percent of restaurants ten years prior. Over the past four years (2012-2016), brunch service in U.S. restaurants increased by 43.5 percent.
In other words, restaurants are catering (pun intended) to the desires of their customers for breakfast foods around the clock. I’m willing to bet your local diner has always served breakfast all day so this isn’t exactly a surprise or huge innovation. What is an interesting development is how many places have responded and added a brunch or all day breakfast menu.
Contrast this with a place I know that opened as a casual lunch business, got great reviews, but not enough business. The owner didn’t want to change his business hours to include early supper to take advantage of the increased foot traffic in the neighborhood after 5. He wasn’t able to make a go of it. The flaw wasn’t the food or the service or even the location. It was in not responding to the realities of the market and the opportunities those realities presented.
Your business might be making similar mistakes. What are your customers telling you? What are market trends showing? It may be overly simplistic, but if customers are enjoying breakfast foods all day long, your job, if you’re in the breakfast business at least part of the day, is to serve them all day as well. You can fight your competitors but you can’t fight your customers’ tastes! Make sense?
Consult Keith 