ATLANTA Wendy’s and Taco Bell court bigger mass markets by introducing breakfast menus, a small chain that had sold only lunch aims to prove it can make that same move yet sidestep morning-meal competition by niche-marketing its higher-end food and catering. —As established restaurant brands like
Rising Roll Gourmet, a fast-casual chain with 12 units open, four more under construction and 30 franchised branches sold, will begin selling breakfast this month. —As established restaurant brands like
But unlike a few of the quick-service chains that slowly are moving into breakfast, Rising Roll’s marketing efforts are solidly focused on such core strengths as catering, which now yields nearly 50 percent of the Atlanta-based chain’s sales. —As established restaurant brands like
Although its restaurants will offer breakfast to walk-in customers, the initial rollout will be the catering component. —As established restaurant brands like
“That’s the greatest opportunity, especially for us,” said Mike Lassiter, president of Rising Roll Gourmet parent Franchising Concepts. —As established restaurant brands like
Having built its reputation on serving gourmet sandwiches for lunch, Rising Roll decided it could do equally well catering warm gourmet breakfast items to corporate clients who wanted “something more impressive” than doughnuts and bagels for breakfast meetings, Lassiter said. —As established restaurant brands like
Because the chain has only served lunch previously, its marketing challenge is convincing customers that the new breakfast menu is the same quality as the lunch items they’ve grown accustomed to, Lassiter said. —As established restaurant brands like
The chain has begun targeting catering customers with an e-mail campaign and marketing brochures delivered with their breakfast orders. In-store material also promotes breakfast. —As established restaurant brands like
“We’ve done some sampling to existing catering customers, and the response has been awesome,” Lassiter said. —As established restaurant brands like
Rising Roll doesn’t consider quick-service chains its competitors in the breakfast daypart. In fact, Lassiter said direct competition is scarce because “we’re not aware” of any other chain catering warm gourmet items for breakfast. —As established restaurant brands like
The menu includes a breakfast panini containing Cheddar cheese, chopped bacon and scrambled eggs grilled in tandoori bread. The panini is toasted brown so that “it comes out like a hot pocket,” Lassiter said. —As established restaurant brands like
A spicy version also is available, as well as breakfast stuffers rolled in a fresh flour tortilla that are “totally different than a burrito,” he said. Stuffers come in three varieties: the Grande, Spicy Grande and Vegetarian. —As established restaurant brands like
The menu also includes gourmet coffee, assorted fruit juices, bagels and muffins. —As established restaurant brands like
A breakfast slider was in the last phases of testing just before the scheduled June rollout and is “something nobody else is doing,” said David Smith, Rising Roll’s chief operating officer. —As established restaurant brands like
The slider has chorizo sausage and an egg and cheese mixture topped with fresh onions and served on a fresh-baked yeast bun. A bacon, egg and cheese version and ham, egg and cheese version also were tested. —As established restaurant brands like
The slider is “going that next step” to offer customers a warm breakfast item to differentiate from other breakfast caterers, Smith said. —As established restaurant brands like
Rising Roll employs a “very aggressive sales-call strategy” to alert existing clients that the chain now offers breakfast, he said. —As established restaurant brands like
At the heart of the chain’s marketing efforts is a fundamental, yet necessary, aspect of local-store marketing: forging strong bonds with customers in the immediate area. —As established restaurant brands like
“What we have found is where we have franchisees doing a thriving catering business for lunch, the store is doing so well because they have partnerships with the clients,” Smith said. “The opportunity is to take the partnerships into breakfast catering.” —As established restaurant brands like
The need is not to find new customers just for breakfast but to convert lunch clients to breakfast clients as well. —As established restaurant brands like
“We’re focusing our entire sales strategy on that,” Smith said. “We want to say to our lunch customers that our breakfast items are as unique as our lunch.” —As established restaurant brands like
By expanding into breakfast, Rising Roll expects to increase its catering business by 20 percent, Smith said. —As established restaurant brands like
“That’s more than doable,” he said. “I’ll be disappointed if we don’t get there.” —As established restaurant brands like
The costs of entering the daypart are minimal, Lassiter said. The only new equipment needed is warming devices for delivery vans to ensure that the food is warm when it arrives, he said. —As established restaurant brands like
Staffing the store is not a problem because most employees begin work no later than 8 a.m., he said, and adding breakfast will require the store to have just two employees start two hours earlier. —As established restaurant brands like
“Another interesting thing from an operations standpoint is that almost all of the items on the breakfast menu are from items already in-store,” Lassiter said. “We only added two or three items.” —As established restaurant brands like
The challenge isn’t the operational aspects of entering the breakfast daypart, he said, “it will be getting customers to think ‘gourmet’ in the morning.” —As established restaurant brands like
