Lines and wait times are not an uncommon sight at The Breakfast Club in downtown Moscow. But nearly 50 new seats have been added in a recent expansion, extending into the building next door, formally known as the Old Peking.
Manager Allison Richmond, who has been at The Breakfast Club for four and a half years said that the expansion took place to better serve guests.
“We get a long wait time on the weekends and a lot of time people choosing to leave just because we’re so busy,” Richmond said. “We can get up to two or even three hours of wait. Having a lot more seating and our kitchen having so much more space to work has given us the opportunity to serve a lot more people than we were able to before.”
While Richmond said that the expansion hasn’t made wait times significantly shorter, but they are able to serve more customers. And the reactions to the enlarged space have been positive.
“Every single day, I get compliments from people that love the space and the atmosphere and love how the restaurant is carried over,” Richmond said.
Richmond said it’s not always easy to predict the rushes, so the expansion has caused them to need around five more employees on shift during the busiest days, with around 55 staff members in total.
Sarah Francis, a second-year UI student, has been working at The Breakfast Club since she first came to Moscow, two years ago. Francis applied to The Breakfast Club initially because of the appealing hours but stayed for the coworkers and the community.
Planning to head home the summer of her first-year, Francis decided to stay in town because of The Breakfast Club.
“I had friends from this job and connections, so I felt comfortable here,” Francis said. “And now I like the summers more than I like the school year. I like hanging out with the locals and the community during the summer — it’s the people that genuinely care about Moscow and the community.
That care for the community hasn’t slowed down since the expansion, with the new space dedicating more room — using the original Breakfast Club kitchen — for them to produce and bottle their Vandal Pepper Sauce, Richmond said.
“The Breakfast Club is like a Moscow icon,” Richmond said. “So, customers will want to send it to their friends that live states away.”
The sauce is continuing to become more popular, selling it in-store and on their website.
“We actually have our own in-house baker now, and she makes all of our huckleberry zucchini bread, she’s been making homemade biscuits, our cinnamon rolls,” Richmond said.
Richmond’s favorite item on the menu is the country skillet, something she thinks of as a safe item everyone will like. While there are no big changes coming to the menu, a huckleberry cobb salad has been added in preparation for summer.
With Francis spending a majority of her school breaks at The Breakfast Club, she has grown close to the regulars who come in every morning.
“I stayed here for Thanksgiving, I wasn’t able to make it home and I had my regulars invite me to their house and I did that instead,” Francis said. “I’ve made second sets of grandparents it feels like.”
Ellamae Burnell can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @EllamaeBurnell