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Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional information on the breakfast pilot from Portillo’s.
Dive Brief:
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Portillo’s will begin serving a breakfast menu for the first time on April 15 at five pilot locations in Chicagoland, the company said in a press release emailed to Restaurant Dive.
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Breakfast will be served from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. daily at these locations for dine-in, drive-thru and takeout. An end date for the pilot is not yet determined, but it will last at least through summer, a spokesperson said.
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The breakfast test is part of the fast casual chain’s strategic approach to base menu innovation on consumer demand.
Dive Insight:
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Portillo’s Breakfast Menu
Release date: April 15
Polish Sausage Egg & Cheese Sandwich: Char-grilled Polish sausage, scrambled eggs, American cheese and Giardiniera sauce on French bread.
Pepper, Egg & Cheese Sandwich: Scrambled eggs, sweet peppers, American cheese and Giardiniera sauce on French bread.
Bacon, Egg & Cheese Sandwich: Scrambled eggs, bacon and American cheese on a croissant.
Loaded Scramble side: Eggs, hash browns and bacon with Portillo’s cheese sauce.
If the pilot proves successful, breakfast could be a lucrative daypart for Portillo’s, especially as the chain struggles with traffic growth. Other brands have seen breakfast rapidly become an important sales driver. Shortly after Wendy’s expanded into breakfast in 2020, its morning daypart made up 8% of sales in Q2 2020 and continued to drive sales momentum to the present. Wendy’s is also devoting more advertising dollars to the daypart, where it will add additional products later this year.
Portillo’s originally teased the breakfast test on April 1, posting a photo of a breakfast sandwich on social media. In addition to its breakfast items, Portillo’s will serve its Italian Beef Sandwich during the morning daypart. It also will offer Breakfast Meal Deals, which include a breakfast sandwich, small coffee and Hash Brown Bites for $7.99. It will also serve Chocolate Cake iced coffee and vanilla iced coffee from Metropolis Coffee, as well as Portillo’s Chocolate Cake Donut, which was created in collaboration with Stan’s Donuts.
In addition to extending operating hours to accommodate the new daypart, the chain said it worked with local personnel to ensure that the restaurants were staffed properly. Management also conducted additional training to make sure that teams were able to execute the breakfast menu with ease, a spokesperson said. The success of the test will be based on customer reactions, which the spokesperson said the chain takes seriously.