Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

storewanderer
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by storewanderer »

Hopefully the sausage is good.

Chickfila Sausage is surprisingly terrible. McDonald's sausage is perfectly edible (actually I think it is the best meat product on their entire menu which isn't saying much) and Carl's Jr. sausage is surprisingly very good.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by Super S »

I passed through a Wendy's drive-thru in Vancouver, WA today for lunch. While waiting I noticed a sign advertising the new breakfast. One thing struck me odd. The drive-thru opens at 6:30 AM, while the dining room does not open until 9 AM. This is a LATE time to open for breakfast. Breakfast is served until 11 AM. They haven't thought this through well if the dining room opens that late, especially when ALL the competition is open at 6 or 7 AM. Not everybody wants to use the drive-thru, and this is going to keep some people away. It seems like they are using a late night type of staffing here. Is this the case at other locations?
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: February 6th, 2020, 3:53 pm Hopefully the sausage is good.

Chickfila Sausage is surprisingly terrible. McDonald's sausage is perfectly edible (actually I think it is the best meat product on their entire menu which isn't saying much) and Carl's Jr. sausage is surprisingly very good.
Chick-fil-A breakfast is generally terrible for non-chicken items, their hash browns are the same stock stuff the size of a quarter that Burger King uses.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 3:28 pm I passed through a Wendy's drive-thru in Vancouver, WA today for lunch. While waiting I noticed a sign advertising the new breakfast. One thing struck me odd. The drive-thru opens at 6:30 AM, while the dining room does not open until 9 AM. This is a LATE time to open for breakfast. Breakfast is served until 11 AM. They haven't thought this through well if the dining room opens that late, especially when ALL the competition is open at 6 or 7 AM. Not everybody wants to use the drive-thru, and this is going to keep some people away. It seems like they are using a late night type of staffing here. Is this the case at other locations?
They are open inside and drive through at 6 or 6:30 in my area according to their app.

But not doing all day breakfast as far as I am concerned basically sets this up for failure. McDonalds, Sonic, and Jack in the Box can do all day breakfast. They need to figure out a way. I am sure it is not that hard. I am not sure why they are bothering with it and this time all locations seem to be being forced to participate. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Probably the same way it has turned out in the past attempts.

I also notice they price increased the breakfast at all of the locations that were serving it previously. The chicken biscuit combo here at the Sparks location that had breakfast previously was about 4.29, now it is 5.19 which is the same price as the other locations. I assume these are the corporate suggested prices. I also assume that Sparks location never price increased from the last time the breakfast was rolled out.

I expect McDonalds will remain the king of breakfast.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 8:03 pm
They are open inside and drive through at 6 or 6:30 in my area according to their app.

But not doing all day breakfast as far as I am concerned basically sets this up for failure. McDonalds, Sonic, and Jack in the Box can do all day breakfast. They need to figure out a way. I am sure it is not that hard. I am not sure why they are bothering with it and this time all locations seem to be being forced to participate. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Probably the same way it has turned out in the past attempts.

I also notice they price increased the breakfast at all of the locations that were serving it previously. The chicken biscuit combo here at the Sparks location that had breakfast previously was about 4.29, now it is 5.19 which is the same price as the other locations. I assume these are the corporate suggested prices. I also assume that Sparks location never price increased from the last time the breakfast was rolled out.

I expect McDonalds will remain the king of breakfast.
I am not sure all day breakfast is necessary. Keep in mind that McDonald's wasn't the first to implement this. Breakfast items can offset not-so-great products on the menu, something Wendy's in my opinion does not have a problem with. I lean towards the breakfast menu at McDonald's because I generally do not like their burgers.

While many chains are offering all-day breakfast, some, such as Burger King and Carl's Jr. still do not offer all-day breakfast. But Burger King and Carl's Jr. do fully open the restaurants early. People do stop for breakfast on the way to work, school, etc, and Wendy's is cutting off a big chunk of business if the dining rooms open at 9AM.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by kr.abs.swy »

Don't take for granted the logistics of offering breakfast and lunch simultaneously. 20 years ago I spent some time working at both Burger King and Jack in the Box. These fast food kitchens are geared toward doing a few things very efficiently, not toward doing a lot of things at the same time. Trying to offer breakfast and lunch at the same time does not fit in with the goal of doing a few things very efficiently -- cooking and prep processes for breakfast items are substantially different than lunch items. At Burger King, there was a clear transition between breakfast and lunch because the kitchen had to be reset.

Jack in the Box did breakfast and lunch. Breakfast food sales outside of breakfast hours were generally small, and the problem was that getting a breakfast order would throw off the rhythm in the kitchen. Things could be running smoothly at lunch hour with reasonably fast service times, and then all of a sudden you would get a breakfast order and things would slow down while you cracked some eggs, tossed some hash browns in the fryer, etc. The people behind the breakfast order would end up having to wait for longer than they otherwise would have had to because of the breakfast order. And we weren't doing enough breakfast orders to have any kind of holding levels of, for example, hash browns.

That isn't to say that it can't be done -- it clearly can. But McDonald's has dialed back the all-day breakfast offerings (at least in my market), presumably in an effort to streamline operations. And there is a reason that Burger King isn't trying all-day breakfast. Sure it adds some marginal sales. But some of those are sales that you were going to get anyways and there is a cost in terms of complexity of the operation and speed of service.

All that said, my first-hand knowledge is 20 years old and I assume there has been some evolution in how these kitchens operate.
storewanderer wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 8:03 pm
Super S wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 3:28 pm I passed through a Wendy's drive-thru in Vancouver, WA today for lunch. While waiting I noticed a sign advertising the new breakfast. One thing struck me odd. The drive-thru opens at 6:30 AM, while the dining room does not open until 9 AM. This is a LATE time to open for breakfast. Breakfast is served until 11 AM. They haven't thought this through well if the dining room opens that late, especially when ALL the competition is open at 6 or 7 AM. Not everybody wants to use the drive-thru, and this is going to keep some people away. It seems like they are using a late night type of staffing here. Is this the case at other locations?
They are open inside and drive through at 6 or 6:30 in my area according to their app.

But not doing all day breakfast as far as I am concerned basically sets this up for failure. McDonalds, Sonic, and Jack in the Box can do all day breakfast. They need to figure out a way. I am sure it is not that hard. I am not sure why they are bothering with it and this time all locations seem to be being forced to participate. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Probably the same way it has turned out in the past attempts.

I also notice they price increased the breakfast at all of the locations that were serving it previously. The chicken biscuit combo here at the Sparks location that had breakfast previously was about 4.29, now it is 5.19 which is the same price as the other locations. I assume these are the corporate suggested prices. I also assume that Sparks location never price increased from the last time the breakfast was rolled out.

I expect McDonalds will remain the king of breakfast.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by Brian Lutz »

Sonic is another one that does all-day breakfast, but they serve the entire menu all day (which means you could get a burger or a shake at 6 am if you wanted one), and the number of breakfast items on their menu is fairly small anyway.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by storewanderer »

I think it would not be unreasonable to disclose to customers ordering breakfast after breakfast hours that there is going to be an extended wait time. But with a busy drive through this can turn into a problem fast... but that car can be pulled forward and told to wait at a parking spot... then you have to spend the labor to take the order out there...

Since Jack in the Box does a lot of cook to order, I think that is why they have been able to do the all day breakfast. I know whenever I order a Breakfast Jack at lunch, I hear the egg crack shortly after I order and always get a product that is so hot and fresh that the cheese literally melts away. I have not noticed any service speed difference when I order the Breakfast Jack vs. when I order, say, 2 tacos with no cheese. I guess both are special orders. It probably also helps if you order one of their breakfast items that uses a usual hamburger bun (and I assume the croissants come in frozen).

It seems like Jack in the Box has always had a very wide variety of fried foods.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by storewanderer »

Wendys had a coupon for a free chicken biscuit with purchase so I stopped in the other morning. I went around 9 AM. They open at 6 AM. 4 bored employees. I paid and got my receipt. Wendys receipts list the transaction number which starts at "1" each day. I was transaction "20005" which means the 5th transaction that day inside. Not sure how many transactions they may have processed via drive through but nobody was around while I was there.

The biscuit was on the dry side, the chicken was limp, hot, and soft and had clearly been sitting in holding for a while. The overall taste of the product was very good. I think it may be better than the Chickfila Chicken Biscuit. They dropped some potatoes when I ordered so those came out very fresh.

I do not expect this to be a successful venture.

Maybe if they try all day service they may have a chance.
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Re: Wendy's to serve breakfast in all locations in 2020

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: March 12th, 2020, 11:38 pm Wendys had a coupon for a free chicken biscuit with purchase so I stopped in the other morning. I went around 9 AM. They open at 6 AM. 4 bored employees. I paid and got my receipt. Wendys receipts list the transaction number which starts at "1" each day. I was transaction "20005" which means the 5th transaction that day inside. Not sure how many transactions they may have processed via drive through but nobody was around while I was there.

The biscuit was on the dry side, the chicken was limp, hot, and soft and had clearly been sitting in holding for a while. The overall taste of the product was very good. I think it may be better than the Chickfila Chicken Biscuit. They dropped some potatoes when I ordered so those came out very fresh.

I do not expect this to be a successful venture.

Maybe if they try all day service they may have a chance.
Maybe they should also try opening the main restaurant when people actually want to eat breakfast. I was at another Wendy's for lunch today, and noticed the dining room at that location also does not open until 9AM. McDonald's went many years without all-day breakfast...
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