Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Cereal in Berkeley? Moo...licious
I was walking down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley earlier today when I came upon a business so unusual that I did a double take. The name of the place is Moo...licious, and the sign said it was a "cereal bistro." I couldn't resist going inside to take a look at the menu board, and it just got weirder and weirder: Moo...licious sells cereal salads and cereal sandwiches. The salads (yes, real salads with lettuce) appear to use cereal as crouton substitutes and the sandwiches feature Nutella or peanut butter with, yes, cereal. They were also offering ice cream with cereal, which makes more sense, and just plain ol' cereal with milk. According to this article, the concept for the restaurant came to the owner in a dream.

Joe said that if Moo...licious is still in business a year from now, he'd treat me to a bowl of cereal, but it did look like there were some people there buying ice cream with cereal, so who knows. I find it a tad odd that they don't open for business until 11 AM -- aren't 7-9 AM the peak cereal eating hours? They should get a big TV and play cartoons all the time and let people come in dressed in their jammies.

Cereal restaurants aren't a Berkeley trend, though -- Cereality was the first, although they don't sell cereal salads and sandwiches. A Cereality franchise just opened in Santa Cruz, and their hours are the eminently more sensible 6 AM-10 PM (7-11 on Fridays and Saturdays). The web site franchisepick.com is so sure the Santa Cruz branch was a bad investment that it's running a dead pool contest.
posted by 125records @ 10:24 PM  
4 Comments:
  • At 12:18 PM, Blogger flasshe said…

    I don't understand why anyone would want to go out for cereal, unless the restaurant was making its own special cereal from scratch or something. Heck, I can add ice cream to my Corn Flakes at home...

     
  • At 12:23 PM, Blogger 125records said…

    Well yes, but keep in mind that this is located in a shopping strip that primarily serves college students, who presumably don't have their own fridges & bowls. If people are willing to spend $4 for a cup of coffee when you can buy Starbucks beans at Safeway, who knows. But would I invest in a cereal restaurant, even one that serves unique items like cereal sandwiches? No.

     
  • At 8:50 PM, Blogger 2fs said…

    Re cuisine-ish innovation: the pirate-themed restaurant has, unsurprisingly, bitten the dust. Partly that's because the chef had a rather dubious history (criminal record, bad debts, etc.) but more because, according to various reviews, the food and service were both woefully inconsistent, leaning toward outright awful most the time...

     
  • At 8:29 AM, Blogger B said…

    I work right around the corner from Moo...licious, and my co-workers and I are as fascinated by it as you are of bad reality TV! We also predict it won't last a year. Business has not been good there.
    At least it's improved its image --when it first opened, they had a security guard standing at the front door!

    B

     
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