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Permalink Reply by Brady on December 29, 2013 at 5:37am

I have a couple of thoughts here.

One thing to be aware of with that panini grill is the effect it can have on your cafe's indoor air quality. In our area, these devices are no longer allowed unless you have adequate ventilation. After spending time in cafes where they don't have or use a hood I understand why. That smell hits you the second you walk through the door and after a few minutes your eyes start watering. I suspect it bothers some customers more than others, but may drive some customers out of a space.

Regardless of whether this is an issue with your setup or not, heating breakfast foods will probably change the smell of your cafe in some way. The smell of bacon may drive sales at 9:00am on Saturday but the stale smell that remains at 2:00 probably won't. Just something to be aware of.

If you haven't already, you ought to also consider your local health department's thoughts on the matter. Some potential menu items may push you into grease trap territory if you aren't there already, some may not be allowed, and you'll need to have an answer for where any of your offsite-made was prepped (chances are "my home kitchen" won't go over too well).

Regarding easy in-house prep stuff, I didn't see a microwave on that list but that's one of the more versatile appliances. Most of my suggestions use that. You can use a microwave to scratch-cook eggs in ramekins, cook or reheat bacon, or reheat premade biscuit or english muffin sandwiches. You could bring in a daily quiche or two and reheat slices to order. Another idea would be individual egg-bake casseroles (this is a favorite of mine from a local bakery) that could be made onsite and reheated as-needed. That soup kettle could likely be used for sausage gravy. Much of that depends on your local health department though, so keep them in mind.

The trick with most of this "make offsite and reheat to order" stuff is managing food cost and waste. Anything commercially made will likely be prohibitively expensive. Watch waste carefully - one or two days' worth of lower than expected sales can easily negate a week's worth of revenue from this product category. Adding bigger breakfast items can sound like an attractive way to increase morning revenue, but unless your cafe is equipped to be able to do this stuff efficiently and well I think you'll find many options are just more trouble than they're worth.

Honestly, it sounds to me like your coffee shop simply isn't equipped to be able to do much of these options very well. Make sure the breakfast options you do offer are good quality and turn over quickly enough that they are reliably fresh and delicious. You can't be all things to all people, but if you play to your strengths you can be the preferred option for many of them.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Denise Smith on January 14, 2014 at 10:54am

Our codes did not require a hood vent but I knew there would be smells and smoke with the panini grill. We installed a super quiet extra strong exhaust vent/fan. It is the same type we have in the bathrooms. We have another one over our convection oven in the BOH. We vent the yummy smells out towards the sidewalk that lead folks in. The Convection oven doesn’t require a hood either but we knew we would need to vent some of the heat out to make the refrigerator and freezer function better. We have so much equipment putting out heat, the in the winter with the vent fans running, we still have to use the air conditioner and very rarely use heat. (Southern Middle Tennessee).

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Permalink Reply by Denise Smith on January 14, 2014 at 10:55am

Vollrath induction burners are what use to cook on.

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