When Did Wendy's Breakfast Finally Stop Flopping?

Wendy's finally introduced a breakfast menu to customers back in 2020, which was an unanticipated gamble considering the pandemic took hold and many restaurants were forced to shut down almost immediately after the launch. Plus, Wendy's past attempts at offering breakfast had flopped not once but three different times since 1985.

But it seems since its 2020 launch, Wendy's has managed to find enough success with its latest breakfast strategy to merit hope for breakfast to stick around. In fact, when other fast food brands were struggling with breakfast menus during the pandemic, Wendy's breakfast was what kept the chain afloat. That year, Wendy's reported its strongest showing of same-store sales in 15 years, due largely in part to its breakfast menu. A year after introducing breakfast, Wendy's marketing team pointed to an emphasis on pick up and delivery options, bacon, and the brand's social media presence as reasons for the new menu's success.

Now, more than three years later, breakfast is still leading Wendy's business through rough times. Let's take a look at how bacon, eggs, and other simple morning menu items have carried the business load for Wendy's.

When Wendy's launched breakfast in 2020, the menu included a Classic Bacon, Egg & Cheese Sandwich, a Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant, a Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, a Breakfast Baconator, and a Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Burrito. The chain also offered a Vanilla Frosty-ccino, a coffee twist on its well known Frosty dessert.

A year after the breakfast menu's launch, John Li, vice president of culinary innovation for Wendy's, told media that the fast food chain is the "king of bacon" and that it sells the most bacon cheeseburgers of any other fast food chain. Wendy's breakfast menu was built around this notion, seeking every opportunity to make bacon the star player, and it worked. The marketing team noted men 18 to 35 years old loved the Baconator, and customers 55 and older preferred the Bacon, Egg, & Swiss Croissant, which was later added to the menu.

Wendy's leadership recently decided to place its money behind its breakfast menu after three years of exceeding expectations. The chain's CEO has said the breakfast menu is "highly profitable" and considers it very important to the business. The breakfast menu currently brings in about $3,000 per week per restaurant or roughly $156,000 per year for the business. Wendy's aim is to bring those numbers up to $6,000 per week per restaurant, and it plans to do so by spending $55 million in advertising for the breakfast menu over the next three years.