Bakery Cafes: What’s Heating Up
Bakery cafés are some of the busiest restaurants
around. Fast-casual concepts in general—and bakery
cafés in particular—have been the industry’s big
success story over the last few years. What’s more,
research confirms that diners visit a bakery café
based on food quality and don’t care nearly as much
about price, so these concepts enjoy healthy bottom
lines along with steady traffic.
The varied but simple menus of bakery cafés means
that other types of restaurants can study their
innovations as a springboard to their own menu
development, in hopes of also borrowing some of the
success that this segment has enjoyed.
If your concept offers breakfast, sandwiches, salads,
soups, baked goods or beverages, bakery cafés may
be able to provide inspiration for menu development.
Let’s take a closer look.
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Beginning with Breakfast
Sandwiches Star
About 80% of leading bakery café chains offer
breakfast. Sandwiches are the mainstay, but
consumers have expressed an interest in seeing
more variety on the morning menu. Bakery cafés
have been obliging them with new items ranging
from oatmeal to bagels to pancakes, crêpes,
waffles and French toast.
Sandwiches are the core entrée for which bakery
cafés are best known. Builds meld flavor notes
from meats, cheeses, toppings and spreads and
showcase the artisan breads that bakery cafés
tend to feature. Sandwiches and wraps increasingly
highlight bold and spicy ethnic flavor profiles;
chicken, turkey and veggie versions in particular
come with Asian, Latin or Southwestern flair. See,
for instance:
The number of breakfast breads and baked goods
on bakery café breakfast menus has nearly
doubled since 2008. Other top options include
fruit items such as fresh fruit cups and fruit-andyogurt parfaits.

Poblano Chicken Wrap—grilled chicken
breast and jasmine rice, wrapped in a
honey-wheat tortilla; filled with black
beans, red onions, grilled peppers, chives,
spinach leaves, roasted poblano dressing
and a signature Daredevil BBQ sauce
(Camille’s Sidewalk Café)

Cuban Chicken Panini—all-natural
chicken, smoked lean ham, sweet-andspicy pickle chips, Swiss cheese, chipotle
mayonnaise and sun-dried tomato ale
mustard, served on focaccia (Panera Bread)

Thai Chicken Wrap—with sliced chicken
breast, jasmine rice, peanuts, Napa
cabbage, green onions and carrots,
topped with a signature Bangkok peanut
sauce and wrapped in a spinach tortilla
(Paradise Bakery & Café)
A few examples of breakfast items that bakery
cafés have added in the past year or so:

Sausage and Red Pepper Scramble
Wrap—scrambled eggs, sausage and
roasted red pepper, shredded cheese
rolled in a flour tortilla (Grand Traverse
Pie Company)

Smoked Salmon Wasabi—sandwich
served on an onion-dill bagel (Au Bon Pain)

Baked French Toast and Eggs—brioche
bread baked in vanilla custard, served with
scrambled eggs and applewood-smoked
bacon (Corner Bakery Cafe)

Housemade Steel-Cut Oatmeal—
topped with crunchy granola, toasted
almonds, dried cranberries and sliced
bananas, drizzled with honey and served
with housemade raisin-pecan sweet crisp
(Corner Bakery Cafe)
"Bakery cafés have
built their reputations
on artisan breads
and baked goods,
sandwiches, salads
and soups."
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In breakfast options
and other mealparts,
customers have
come to expect the
standard Europeanstyle offerings to be
listed at a bakerycafé, but there’s
always innovation in
flavor, ingredients
and preparation.
Others emphasize local, natural, organic or
seasonal ingredients. Some examples from the past
year or so:

Tuscan Chicken Sandwich—all-natural
grilled chicken breast, mozzarella cheese,
pesto mayonnaise, green olive and
pepperoncini relish, fresh basil, lettuce
and tomato, served on ciabatta bread
(Paradise Bakery & Café)

BBLT Sandwich—summer special; six
slices of applewood-smoked bacon, lettuce
and locally grown tomatoes with housemade
cracked pepper and balsamic mayonnaise on
white toast (Corner Bakery Cafe)

Seasonal Turkey Berry Brie Sandwich—
with French Brie cheese and Swedish
lingonberry jam on Italian Asiago focaccia
bread, served with lettuce and tomato
(Atlanta Bread Company)
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Salads Get Sophisticated
Warming Up to Soups
Chicken, Caesar,
Asian-style and
specialty salads
provide plenty of
green accents on
bakery café menus.
Asian-style salads
(typically featuring
Thai-inspired
preparations and
peanut or ginger
dressings, etc.) are a growth category, as are
Mediterranean or Greek salads featuring feta
cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers.
The best place on bakery café menus to
celebrate the seasons is the soup section—
particularly in the fall and winter, when squash
and pumpkin take the spotlight. Au Bon Pain
units are now being designed with a self-service
soup station, and Panera Bread announced plans
for a Soups of the World promotion. Some of the
best seasonal soups include:
"High-quality food is
key at bakery cafés,
and is something
consumers are willing
to pay more for."
Other chains, such as Bruegger’s Bagel Bakery and
Au Bon Pain, have installed build-your-own-salad
stations. Here again, natural, organic, local and
seasonal ingredients help set items apart. Some
salads that have proven popular:

Roasted Poblano Corn Chowder—sweet
and spicy peppers, corn and potatoes in a
vegetable broth (Corner Bakery Cafe)

Harvest Pumpkin Soup—a mix of onions,
celery and carrots simmered in a vegetarian
velouté with kabocha and Golden Delicious
pumpkin purées, cinnamon, clove, ginger
and sweet cream (Au Bon Pain)

Roasted Organic Butternut Squash
Soup—a purée of roasted butternut
squash, potatoes, onions and cream,
seasoned with allspice, cumin, cinnamon,
nutmeg and sage and topped with sour
cream (Atlanta Bread Company)
 Asian Lettuce Cups—spring mix with
Thai chicken, lo mein noodles, carrots,
cucumbers, basil, ramen noodle mix and a
Thai peanut dressing (Crispers)

Santa Fe BBQ Chicken Salad—barbecued
chicken, black-bean-and-corn salsa,
avocado, Cheddar cheese and tortilla strips
atop spring lettuce; served with ranch
dressing (Alonti Market Café)

Seasonal Balsamic Couscous Salad—field
greens and grape tomatoes in balsamic
vinaigrette, topped with a couscous salad
made with cilantro, corn, tomatoes, green
onion, red and green peppers, olives and an
herb vinaigrette; and

Seasonal Tomato Tartine Salad—field
greens with cherry and grape tomatoes,
roasted balsamic-glazed mushrooms and
blue cheese, tossed in a blue-cheese
vinaigrette with a roasted tomato basil
tartine (la Madeleine Country French Café)
Other Entrées
Bakery cafés may be known for sandwiches,
salads and soups, but many have branched out
into other types of hot entrées as well, putting
themselves into direct competition with casualdining restaurants. Some of the more interesting
examples include:

Greek Chicken Pizzeta—a hand-tossed
flatbread pizza featuring feta cheese
crumbles, grilled chicken, Kalamata olives,
roasted red peppers, spinach, mozzarella,
Cheddar cheese, provolone and tomatoes
(Bear Rock Café)

Macaroni and Cheese—made with
Romano and Cheddar cheeses (Au Bon Pain)
 Maryland Crab Cakes with Rémoulade—
two large, grilled Maryland crab cakes
made with lump crabmeat and served with
roasted or mashed potatoes, grilled julienne
vegetables and choice of rémoulade or
tartar sauce (Bear Rock Café)
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Baked Goods: Core of the Menu
Sysco Can Help You Compete
Bakery cafés are, above all, bakeries. Cakes,
pies, dessert bars, tarts, cookies and brownies
all provide enticing dessert and snack options.
Most bakery cafés heavily tout their selection of
fresh-from-the-oven baked goods, prominently
displaying these desserts along with breads that
are offered for bulk sale. Beyond the standard
cookies and bars, interesting desserts include:
Bakery cafés have accustomed American diners to
a new level of sophistication in away-from-home
breakfast offerings, sandwiches, salads, soups,
baked goods and beverages. All of these can
provide independent restaurants a springboard for
menu innovation to help them compete effectively,
not only with bakery cafes but also with other
restaurants up and down the price spectrum that
are imitating this successful segment.
 Turtle Cheesecake, Union Street
Peach-Strawberry Pie, West Bay
Blueberry Crumb Pie—from an extensive
dessert line (Grand Traverse Pie Company)

Double Chocolate Baby Bundt Cake
(Corner Bakery Café)

Summer Strawberry and Cheese
Croissant; Fall Seasonal Pumpkin
Muffin (Au Bon Pain)
It should also be pointed out that not all pastries
are sweets; bakery cafes also excel at savory
versions. For instance:
 Savory Puff-Pastry Tarts—Tomato
Mozzarella, with sun-dried tomato pesto and
basil, and Black Forest Ham & Mushroom,
with Swiss cheese, crême fraîche and
scallions (Champagne French Bakery Café)
Beverages: Perfect Accompaniments
Nine out of 10 bakery café customers who order
food at a bakery café also order a beverage. While
some bakery cafés have expanded their beverage
menu with beers and wines, these restaurants are
best known for specialty coffees, often prepared by
trained baristas. Hot and iced coffee may be flavored
with syrups and mix-ins. Cold and iced beverages
may also be more interesting than those offered in
typical quick-service restaurants. Some examples:

Seasonal Wild Mountain Blueberry
Coffee—fair-trade certified (Bruegger’s
Bagel Bakery)

Caramel Blast, Caramel Latte—specialty
coffee drinks (Jazzman’s Café)

Smoothies made with organic yogurt
(Panera Bread)
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Baked-on-premise breads and pastries may seem
like a hard-to-duplicate feature, but BakerSource
from Sysco offers parbaked and finished artisan
breads, rolls, muffins and cookies, as well as
dry, mixable ingredients perfect for from-scratch
baked goods. With a wide range of home-baked
flavors from English muffins and ciabatta breads
to cinnamon rolls and donuts, BakerSource brings
superior quality to the menu and provides allimportant delicious aromas that stimulate traffic
and purchases, while taking time and effort out of
your baking tasks.
To help level the playing field as you compete
against bakery cafés and other chains, you can
count on your own corporate partnership—your
Sysco Marketing Associate backed by Sysco’s army
of foodservice experts. Sysco’s food ingredients
offer the best quality and tremendous variety,
including an increasing complement of locally and
sustainably sourced options. Sysco also offers
you a wide range of valuable services, such as
business reviews, profitability consultation, menu
analysis and development, training and more. In
addition, Sysco iCare connects you with partners
who can offer specialized business services to
assist you with everyday needs from payroll to
marketing tools.
For more information,
contact your Sysco
Marketing Associate.
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