Food

Restaurant operators are tired of flat traffic numbers. In the 12 months ending February 2018, lunch traffic was flat, according to The NPD Group, and dinner traffic dropped 1 percent.

The one bit of sunshine: Breakfast. Restaurant traffic for breakfast and morning snacks rose 1 percent in that time period. How can you capture a piece of the early-bird action? The old standbys, like egg and bacon, may not be enough. Here are five creative menu offerings that will attract and satisfy your breakfast customers.

Your mother was wrong: Breakfast probably isn’t the most important meal of the day — from a health standpoint, anyway. From the perspective of restaurant operators, however, breakfast is very important indeed.

At a time when restaurant sales are slumping, breakfast consumption continues to climb. The NPD Group’s research forecasts breakfast occasions (both in restaurants and at home) will grow by 5 percent through 2019. If you’re currently offering breakfast, are you hitting customers’ sweet spots? And if you’re not, is it time to expand into this segment? It’s worth keeping an eye on current breakfast trends.