Cereality Cereal Bar & Cafe
The national media has given Cereality a big wet kiss. “The latest fast-food concept is so absurdly simple, self-indulgent and reflective of one’s inner child that, well, how can it fail?” asked USA Today in May 2004. Other national coverage ensued in People, Time, Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, and Business 2.0. But last fall, after Roth and Bacher announced plans to open a Chicago location, local reaction was decidedly mixed. “I’d be damned to spend more than $4.00 for a bowl of cereal when I could keep a box in my office for less,” read one typical opinion on LTHforum.com. A Gapers Block post was more succinct: “Wonder how long that will take to tank.”
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Inspiring such skepticism are not just Cereality’s prices–a bowl with two scoops of cereal, one topping, and milk costs $3.50 before tax, as much as an entire box of some brands at Jewel–but also its slick marketing. Counter workers wear pajama tops and are referred to as “Cereologists,” big-screen TVs play cartoons, diners eat at a butcher-block table designed to suggest a kitchen counter, and retail goods include shirts reading “Captain of Crunch” and “United Flakes of America.” Roth says, “We’ve trademarked everything you touch and feel and see and read in the stores”–such as My Cereal. My Way., $7.99 boxes of customized cereal to take home. Customers create their own blends (in house or to go) by choosing from about 30 cereals, including Alpha-Bits, Trix, Lucky Charms, Corn Chex, and the recently revived 60s favorite Quisp, and adding any of several dozen toppings, ranging from wheat germ and fresh fruit to minimarshmallows and Pop Rocks. There’s also Your Cereal. Our Way., a selection of premade blends like The Devil Made Me Do It: Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, chocolate flavor crystals, and crushed malted milk balls. Not everything on the menu will send you into diabetic coma, though. One of the most popular blends, Jump Start, is a mix of Special K and Cheerios topped with pecans, walnuts, honey, and peaches. Another, Life Experience, combines Life cereal with almonds, bananas, and honey.
Roth says he’s not worried that customers will shy away from paying box prices for a bowl. “People thought that no one would ever pay more than a buck for a cup of coffee years ago,” he points out. He’s fond of comparing Cereality to Starbucks, another business based on many customized, comparatively pricey variations on a simple, comforting product that people consume on a daily basis. Roth hopes to emulate “the pervasiveness of Starbucks,” he says. “When you crave their products, you can find them. It’s our goal to be where people are when they get their craving for cereal at any time of day.”
