How To Create An All-day Breakfast Menu For Your Cafe

An extended breakfast menu might be the ticket to winning customers over. There’s a few things to consider when crafting an all-day breakfast menu when opening a cafe.

Variety

Customers seeking a late breakfast might be craving something sweet and succulent, with syrup poured all over it. Or, they might be looking for a savoury meal that hits all the right notes. The breakfast-of-choice might be something small like a muffin, or full and rich, with eight items on the plate. Then there’s the drinks to consider: coffee will likely be a popular choice, but juices, smoothies and cocktails may be a suitable accompaniment to an afternoon breakfast. An all-day breakfast menu may only specialise in a few things, but some variety, perhaps along the lines of meal size, or a division between sweet and savoury, may capture a larger target audience. 

Consider the audience

A breakfast menu may look completely different depending on what type of cuisine the venue specialises in. Then there’s dietary requirements and preferences. Providing substitutes and/or dishes that meet a range of needs can be a great way to reach a wider audience, and keys listing which dishes are vegetarian/vegan/dairy free/nut free (etc) may be important for clarity. An understanding of who attends the venue – and what they are seeking when they attend – is critical in creating a popular all-day breakfast menu that the venue can execute well, and that customers will enjoy.

Introduce new food trends

Crafting a breakfast menu might involve a process of trial and error. It may be worth jumping on a trend for a period of time (i.e. cronuts), then removing it when the sheen wears off. It might also be worth considering a few specials which provide flexibility to try something new. If a dish doesn’t land after some persistence, it could be worth cutting it out of the menu, and trialing something different. Hopefully, the end result is a series of dishes that resonates, and has staying power.

Marketing your all-day menu

 An all-day breakfast menu is an exciting thing. Not every venue does it, and eating a big plate of pancakes outside of traditional hours can verge on rebellion. If possible, consider introducing customers to the breakfast menu with a discount, promotion or gift voucher, proclaiming it on social media, and introducing a specialisation for certain days of the week (i.e. vegan Fridays). For an all-day breakfast to sell like hotcakes, customers need to know about it – and be eager to sample the delicacies on offer.

Everyone has different breakfast tastes, and what constitutes as breakfast may differ depending on who’s asked. Not every hospitality venue has the capacity to offer an all-day menu, but if it’s possible, consider going all in on it. The reward could be significant.

Talk to our team on how you can set up breakfast service that sells like hotcakes.