Keeping up with the cereal lovers

Cereal isn't just cereal nowadays.

With the success of Cereality -- which operates primarily as a cereal bar and cafe -- it's become clear that the morning-time food is also quite profitable.

That's why area stores such as Bucks County Coffee are picking up on the cereal frenzy by incorporating the popular breakfast staple into their morning menu.

Bucks County Coffee, based in Langhorne, Pa., and with stores concentrated in the mid-Atlantic region, will begin selling cereal on Wednesday at its location at 240 S. 40th St. Cereal aficionados can choose from nine Kellogg's varieties topped with fruit served on the spot or in grab-and-go containers. Customers can choose from whole, skim and soy milk poured from self-serve milk dispensers into cartons.

"We're just trying to introduce a new store concept here," store manager Michael O'Malley said.

Jeff Larsen, Bucks County Coffee's CEO, said that the majority of Americans "make a morning-stop decision based on coffee." And while Bucks has an extensive selection of traditional breakfast items to supplement coffee-drinkers, cereal was not one of them.

"How can we do something that's fast, fresh, healthy and doable from an operational standpoint?" Larsen asked. In the end, cereal came out as the winning vote in choosing a healthy morning alternative.

To gauge customer reaction, free cereal samples were given out on Sept. 9 at the 40th Street branch. If successful, cereal will become a permanent feature of the menu. Still, Larsen does not expect cereal to be a big part of the business.

"If I can sell a dozen or so cereals in the morning, I'd view it as successful," he said.

The Bucks County store at 3430 Sansom St. will most likely have fewer offerings due to space limitations. The coffee chain also plans to offer cereal at its coming location in Flemington, N.J., which is just east of Trenton.

While Bucks County and Cereality are relative newcomers in spotlighting cereal as a popular breakfast item, one local eatery had been quietly doing so before either business appeared on Penn's campus.

John Boegly, the brother of the owner of Paris Cafe, located at 124 S. 41st St., has been serving cereal since spring 2003.

Boegly said cereal was not originally a part of the menu. One day, he was eating Raisin Bran cereal as usual in the morning and a customer asked for some.

"They didn't see it on the menu, so I gave them some of mine, and that's how it started," Boegly said.

His brother's store sells mostly General Mills whole-grain cereals served in a large china bowl. Unlike Bucks County, which only plans to offer cereal in the morning, Paris Cafe sells cereal all day long.

"There's never a set time when people are going to wake up," Boegly said. Late-afternoon cereal customers are a norm for him.

Perhaps that helps explain why cereal fanatics flock to Cereality at all times during the day.

The cereal specialty store, located on 3631 Walnut St., serves more than 30 varieties of cereal and toppings.

"Cereality started out of an observation that cereal is extremely popular among college students," Cereality CEO David Roth said.

Cereality currently has a patent pending to protect its concept of serving cereal. It is represented by Perkins Coie, an international law firm that represents businesses such as Amazon.com and Microsoft Corporation.

Describing his thoughts on hearing of Bucks' addition of cereal on the menu, Roth said that it is similar to a move that's already been made in convenience stores. While he views businesses that incorporate cereal into their menu as evidence of Cereality's success, he warned such eateries to be careful not to infringe on patent and trademark issues.

For instance, Cereality spokeswoman Lisa Kovitz said that if a business calls its servers "cereologists" or dishes out cereal in containers extremely similar to Cereality's, that would be a possible violation of intellectual property rights.

"We're not saying that restaurants can't combine cereals and toppings," Roth said. [But] when you do it in a way that looks and acts like Cereality, you're running into a territory where you get scrutinized and have a legal mess on your hands."

But College sophomore Tomoyo Nakamura -- a frequent Bucks County customer -- said that she does not think stores that are selling cereal are necessarily copying Cereality.

"It's natural for [Bucks] to have a cup of cereal because they serve breakfast."

Still, when it comes down to stopping at Bucks or Cereality for a bowl of cereal, second-year dental student Carlos Ramos said he would probably choose Cereality.

Bucks "is more like a coffee shop. The other one is like a specialty store for cereal."

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