Banking In On Breakfast: How One Man Started A Very Successful Franchise

Have you ever wandered through a town, maybe even your own, and wished there was somewhere good to go to breakfast? Thought to yourself, if only, such and such type of place existed here, it would do so well! Odds are you are probably right. Breakfast is the new hit in the restaurant world. Find out here why these types of restaurants are doing so well and how one man made a fortune off of this exact scenario!

Entrepreneur shares…

When engineer Ron Green moved to Louisiana from San Diego in the early 1990s to work on the superconducting super collider, the thing he missed most was brunch. “I spent 16 years in California, and on weekend mornings I’d travel up and down Highway 1, looking for little restaurants. I kept mental notes about what I liked and disliked about each of them,” he says. “When I moved to Hammond, La., and tried to go out on weekends, all I could find were IHOPs, Denny’s and Waffle Houses.”

When the government scrapped the super-collider project, Green took it as sign to try something new. He bought an old summer home one block off Lake Pontchartrain in the small town of Mandeville, and in 1996 opened The Broken Egg Café, the type of friendly, slightly upmarket brunch spot he’d been yearning for. It seemed other people in the area had been looking for something similar–customers happily accepted two-hour wait times at the cafe on Saturday and Sunday mornings during its first year in business.

Sixteen years later, Green’s original restaurant still draws weekend crowds, as do the 20 units of his franchise, dubbed Another Broken Egg Café. While Green’s menu has 150 items, including burgers and sandwiches, more than half the offerings have one thing in common: Their main ingredient is the humble egg.

A decade ago, when buffet chains, fast-food outlets and family-dining franchises were expanding their menus, attempting to cater to almost every taste, a singular focus on an item such as the egg would have seemed like a stamp of doom. But now, with the success of narrowly themed concepts like the 260-plus-unit Noodles & Company and the 126-unit Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers (which offers only its namesake product, plus fries, toast and coleslaw), restaurants that do one thing–and do it well–are gaining traction.

The secret is in picking an item with enough broad appeal and versatility to anchor a menu. PB Loco, a gourmet peanut-butter sandwich chain that started franchising in 2005, got great reviews for its unique flavor combinations. The problem was, the concept didn’t appeal to breakfast and dinner crowds; even for lunch, the grade-school staple felt more like an occasional novelty than a regular meal. The company started closing stores in early 2008. A small flurry of cereal-only restaurants opened and flamed out in the mid-2000s, going down for the same reasons.

Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a restaurant research and consulting firm in Chicago, says narrowly focused restaurants need to choose their offerings wisely. “What’s at the center of the plate? Is it substantial enough for people to think of as a meal?” he asks. “Noodles & Company broadened its menu to add sandwiches; they have salads, soups, proteins and a good beverage choice. And people are comfortable having pasta at the center of the plate.”

Shell Game
Green is not the only one who believes eggs have enough heft to take center stage at mealtime. Besides Another Broken Egg, other egg-focused eateries in the “better breakfast” category include First Watch, Mimi’s Café and Le Peep. They’ve all benefited from a breakfast craze that has made morning meals the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. restaurant industry for the last five years, according to market research firm The NPD Group.

But the other element that sets these concepts apart is the egg itself–inexpensive, nutritious and the Swiss Army knife of the culinary world. “It’s so versatile, you can cook it any way you want,” says Another Broken Egg’s Green (who prefers poached). “You can put it in a salad, use it as a binding agent for sweet stuff. It pairs well with seafood. It has essential amino acids, about 70 calories and all kinds of vitamins–everything you need to round out a healthy diet.”

The other reason the breakfast theme is taking off is that the competition is not against other restaurants, but rather the cereal aisle. “The home is our No. 1 competitor,” Barnett says. “People typically eat at home for that morning daypart, and the more competitors that are marketing and getting people to dine outside for breakfast, the better. It raises all boats.”

Get more information from Entrepreneur!