Another Broken Egg Café is renowned for doing wonders with egg dishes, such as omelets and scramblers. I mean egg is right in its title. But this morning it announced six new lunch offerings, including a chicken-salad sandwich, blackened shrimp salad and Louisiana gumbo, with hardly an egg mentioned. The brand is hoping these new items will bring catering and off-premises growth to its lunch program, and that’s no yoke.
Brandy Blackwell, vice president of marketing at Another Broken Egg Cafe
“We think there’s a big opportunity in lunch catering,” said Brandy Blackwell, vice president of marketing for the brand. “Food at work and food incentives are real. We want to piggyback on that trend.”
With enhanced lunch offerings on its menu, delivery will now play a bigger role in driving sales, since lunch is a more popular ordering occasion than breakfast or brunch. “We’re going to be running delivery offers to introduce the new items,” said Blackwell. “We see the off-premises piece of our business proportionally increasing.”
The brand has said that around 10 percent of its total sales come from off-premises transactions. By beefing up lunch, this should continue to grow as the brand can now compete on more playing fields. “This lets us play in three different day parts—breakfast, brunch or lunch—and be more accessible,” said Blackwell.
When it comes to catering, one goal for the brand is to be thought of as an all-day food provider, perfect for long meetings or day-long planning sessions.
“This make us more approachable for businesses who have needs throughout the day,” said Blackwell. “We’re looking forward to the busy fourth-quarter catering season.”
Along with the new lunch items, the brand is rolling out new options to consumers who want to mix and match half an entrée with a half a soup or salad. Blackwell is confident the value of these combinations, which the brand calls Lunch Duos, will be attractive to consumers.
“We’re offering them for $10.99,” she said. “With economic challenges still out there, we think they will feel they got a good deal. When we tested them before the rollout, the Duos were the best-selling item per café.”
Many of the new lunch items and combinations have been transferred to the catering menu, which is a substantial evolution for the brand.
“This is all part of our approach to meet the customer where they want to be met,” said Blackwell. “We can either follow the trends and keep up or not be in consideration. It’s also continuing to understand that what has historically worked for the consumer may be a little bit different now. We’re excited to offer people more options.”
The chain reached nearly $165 million in systemwide sales from 89 locations in 2022. It’s now in 102 locations.
