Let’s Celebrate!

As spring approaches, some of the foodservice industry’s highest traffic days are on the horizon. In fact, Mother’s Day, May 10th, and Easter, April 12th, are the largest and fifth largest restaurant traffic days of the year. For restaurants to maintain their relevance with patrons, one daypart they should be looking to develop is Brunch. On these holidays in particular, brunch plays a critical role in the success of a restaurants offering. The good news is that as a daypart, brunch has seen steady growth over the last decade – on 50% more menus today! Casual Dining restaurants are the clear leaders with 10.2% already featuring brunch on their menus.

Brunch also allows concept chefs to develop creative menu items that fuse Breakfast and Lunch/Dinner items. One of the fastest growing menu concepts is the Brunch Burger, with a 4-year growth rate of 73%. The typical brunch burger has a traditional hamburger patty, with a fried egg and/or a crispy hash brown round. Other unique ideas like the Deconstructed Breakfast Taco do a great job of adding an intriguing twist to something familiar. Given its continued menu growth and growing consumer demand, developing a brunch menu is an absolute must for operators who have not already broken into this profitable daypart.

Brunch: Capitalizing on Opportunity

Brunch now accounts for about 4% of all visits in the Casual Dining segment. For some operators, it is as simple as adding Brunch forward dishes and cocktails to Lunch menus, while others are launching fully developed Brunch menus and opening earlier to capture the more traditional brunch diner.

Days That Can Make or Break Your Year

Learn more about the mother of all holidays for commercial restaurants by downloading the infographic below.