Corner Bakery Cafe: Cornering the Breakfast Market

Corner Bakery Cafe giving away coffee and mugs to build morning customer traffic.

By Scott Hume, Editor-in-Chief -- Restaurants & Institutions, 9/12/2007

Corner Bakery Cafe’s aggressive plan to expand its breakfast business begins Sept. 17, when the chain begins distributing 10,000 coffee travel mugs to consumers. (See representative breakfast menu at bottom of page.)

Managers of the 99 company-owned and franchised Corner Bakery Cafe units have been instructed to give out the travel mugs in pairs, the idea being that recipients will keep and use one while passing the second to a friend or neighbor. Each mug has a coupon redeemable for a free cup of coffee at Corner Bakery Cafe. Additionally, the mugs can be refilled for $1.29, below the $1.59 menu price.

The Dallas-based chain is giving each of its units an allotment of mugs at no charge if unit managers write an approved marketing plan for distribution. “We told them, ‘Don’t just give these out to the first 100 people who come in. Be creative,’” says Ric Scicchitano, vice president for food and beverage. “We know that Corner Bakery Cafe always has been a gathering place. We want people to invite their neighbors to meet them here for coffee.”

Units are encouraged to use their catering vans to visit Saturday soccer games or other events where they can serve free coffee and distribute pairs of travel mugs. Finding appropriate distribution opportunities near urban locations will require more creativity, Scicchitano says, “because those are go-go consumers. It can be tough to get them to stop, even for a free cup of coffee.”

The promotion follows the chain’s expansion of its breakfast menu and systemwide upgrading of its coffee program. New brewing equipment has been rolled out to units and a new coffee-bean roasting company was hired to create and supply a proprietary premium blend.

“We have a terrific breakfast menu,” says Scicchitano, “but if you’re going to serve breakfast, you have to have great coffee. We’re not a coffee shop, but we want to provide that coffee-shop experience for customers. If we served bad coffee, we’d see other people’s cups and mugs in our stores, and I don’t want to see that.”

Corner Bakery Cafe is owned by CBC Restaurant Corp.--formed in 2005 by Corte Madera, Calif.-based Il Fornaio (America) Corp. and New York City-based private-equity firm Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co. LLC to acquire the fast-casual chain from Brinker International in Dallas. The ownership change has been all to the good, Scicchitano says. “As part of Brinker, Corner Bakery Cafe was the small fish in the a big pond. Now we are the fish in the pond.”

Scicchitano says Corner Bakery Cafe, which now operates in eight markets (Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles/Orange County, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.), will double in size within five years. The chain had 2006 sales of $208 million, with an average unit volume of $2.1 million and an average check of $7.50.

ON THE MENU: BREAKFAST AT CORNER BAKERY