Starbucks To Offer Breakfast
Watch out, Egg McMuffin, there’s a new breakfast sandwich in town. On May 31, Starbucks Coffee Co. will start offering warm breakfast sandwiches in McDonald’s hometown.
The most similar offering to the McDonald’s mainstay Egg McMuffin is the sausage, egg and cheddar sandwich served on a toasted English muffin. The fare gets fancier from there, with a peppered bacon, egg and cheddar sandwich, a turkey bacon sandwich made with cholesterol-free eggs and reduced-fat white cheddar cheese, the Black Forest ham, egg and cheddar sandwich and the Eggs Florentine with baby spinach and havarti cheese.
For McDonald’s Corp., which derives about a quarter of its sales at breakfast, the encroachment of Starbucks poses a real threat. Indeed, McDonald’s introduced the Egg McMuffin in 1973. McDonald’s already has been fighting back with the introduction of premium coffee earlier this year. The Oak Brook-based chain is also testing breakfast burritos in some markets. The new Starbucks breakfast sandwiches will be available next week in 126 Chicago-area Starbucks. More Starbucks in the area will be outfitted with ovens and will have the sandwiches by the end of February.
Chicago is the fifth city to get the warm sandwiches. Seattle, where Starbucks is based, Portland, Ore., Washington, D.C., and San Francisco already have them. Priced at $2.95, the Starbucks sandwiches cost 32% more than the $2.02 Egg McMuffin. And they’ll be available at all hours, unlike McDonald’s beakfast service, which usually ends around 10:30 a.m. Also on May 31, Starbucks will start offering two warm lunch sandwiches – tomato mozzarella with basil and spinach and a southwestern turkey sandwich with pepper jack cheese. Once the Starbucks ovens are up and running next week, Starbucks also will encourage customers to warm up their pastries.
