All-day breakfast at McDonald’s isn’t a “significant concern” for Sonic Corp., said Cliff Hudson, chief executive officer, president and chairman. The Oklahoma City-based drive-in chain has offered its full menu all day since its national breakfast roll-out more than a decade ago.
“The reason it’s not our concern is because … we sell much more non-breakfast food in the breakfast hours than we sell breakfast food in the non-breakfast hours,” Hudson said during a Dec. 8 presentation at the Barclays Gaming, Lodging, Leisure and Restaurant Conference in New York.
Sonic’s business encompasses five dayparts: breakfast, lunch, afternoon, dinner and evening. At about 12% to 13% of sales, breakfast represents the daypart with the lowest sales.
“I think one of the reasons breakfast has worked for us when some of our competition has struggled with it is because 4% to 5% of those sales, four to five points of the 12% to 13% are drinks,” Hudson said. “So this has made our breakfast work for a long time. But … I think there is real opportunity for us at breakfast. There’s opportunity at all dayparts, but more so at breakfast than any other daypart because it is smaller.
“The other dayparts have 20%, 22%, 24% of our sales, whereas breakfast is 12%, 13%. So I think there’s more opportunity there. And it is an area we’ll be focusing on in 2016.”
The breakfast menu at Sonic features breakfast burritos, french toast sticks and the signature Breakfast Toaster sandwich, which includes melted cheese, fluffy eggs and a choice of sausage, bacon or ham on thick Texas toast. Hudson said breakfast items on the menu represent only about 5% or 6% of the sales mix.