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Day & Night Cereal Bar, a breakfast-focused eatery with a West Coast connection, is set to open Feb. 13 at Greenwood Park Mall.
The establishment will occupy an exterior-facing space formerly occupied by Johnny Rockets, in the same part of the mall where Dave and Busters and Bar Louie are located.
Day & Night’s menu is built around sugary cereals like Lucky Charms, Froot Loops and Cocoa Puffs with a variety of toppings including whipped cream, caramel and gummy bears. Customers can order cereal in bowls (a combination of two or three cereals, plus milk and toppings); shakes (one or two cereals blended with ice cream); and cereal waffles (waffles with cereal mixed into the batter). The establishment will also offer a selection of house-made juices and lemonade.
“We’re really excited. Everything is coming together pretty fast,” said Kyle Wimberly, 34, of Indianapolis, who is the chief operating officer of the Greenwood location.
This will be the first Indiana location for Day & Night, which opened last summer as a food truck in Los Angeles.
Wimberly learned about Day & Night through a friend who happens to be a roommate of Karman DuPree Jr., co-owner of the Los Angeles operation.
Wimberly flew out to visit his friend last year, checked out the food truck and “fell in love instantly” with the concept. He is partnering with longtime friend Ericka Butler on the Greenwood site, with Butler as the franchise owner and Wimberly as its operator.
He said he’s hoping to open another five Day & Night locations by Thanksgiving, although he hasn’t yet decided where they will be. He’s open to both the Indianapolis area and other cities inside and outside of Indiana.
A Warren Central High School graduate, Wimberly has spent the last decade or so as a mobile hawker—one of the people who roam the stands at sports events and concerts selling concessions.
In that job, Wimberly said, he’s had the chance to work at venues around the U.S. and hone his sales and marketing skills.
“When you’re a mobile hawker, you’re your own business,” Wimberly said. “I know what products sell, what products don’t sell.”
He’s incorporating a bit of that promotional sensibility into Day & Night. For instance, the establishment will have a “photo op wall” where customers can take a selfie and post it on social media to receive a discount on that day’s purchase.
The Greenwood site will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
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I wish Mr Wimberly well, but let’s check back on this one in a year…
Agreed…I wish I weren’t so cynical, but a breakfast place that doesn’t open until 11am? And serves nothing but kids’ cereals when kids are (under ideal conditions) in school five days a week? It would be one thing if there were some homemade granola-based cereal or creative options you can’t get at Kroger. Maybe there are. But to pay $7 (the prices in California; presumably less in Indiana) to eat the same stuff we have in our pantry, combined with froyo toppings? I hope he finds some ways to give this a distinctive spin.
Killer of Enthusiasm here, checking back in. It didn’t last a year. Sorry Kelly.
American D and Chuck W are both cynics and killers of enthusiasm.
I wish you guys the best of luck and will patronize your new place when it opens. It sounds great to me. No one thought Starbucks had a snowball’s chance either. Who in the world would pay those prices for a cup of coffee you can get in your own kitchen for a fraction of the price.
I don’t like being a Debbie Downer, but we also have to be realistic. If I were a bank, would I make a loan to a start-up that came to me with this proposal?
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If it were the first of its kind, based in California, the answer is “Maybe”. It’s a cute concept, and people love ice cream; as Matthew S said, it had better be something good….better than Costco’s Kirkland band–and Kirkland products are generally well above average as mass-market stuff goes. The fact that it operates out of a food truck means it can locate strategically where nightlife spots are, and people can swing by there in the same way they might have gotten milkshakes at an all-night diner…or they can pick one up if they get a case of the munchies (this is California after all). And a food truck can probably remain open till pretty late at night. And then, if it proves successful, there might be cause for additional financing to expand to locations in nearby cities.
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But this is the second location, and it’s 2,000 miles away…the price point will almost definitely have to change because “willingness to pay” has a different meaning in Indiana. They also chose a fixed, bricks-and-mortar location and are subject to the mall’s regulations. If it tries to capitalize on nightlife, there is little beyond the mall chainy-chain-chain restaurants nearby: Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, and borrowed-time Bar Louie. Sure, there’s also Dave and Buster’s, but if this cereal place closes at 9pm on weekends, who from the Dave and Buster’s crowd is it going to serve? Again, coming from the perspective of a bank, unless this entrepreneur is already flush with equity and has a proven track record, the answer is going to be a resounding “Rejection”.
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The concept might actually work in Indy–but what’s that they always say about location? It sounds a bit like Johnny Rockets but with more limited options. And we see what happened to Johnny Rockets.
Going by the photos on their Yelp page for their CA location, it seems the shakes are far more popular than the bowls. in that sense, the cereal is just a topping with the shake and the price isn’t unreasonable if the ice cream is a decent quality.
But for the straight up bowls, that’s quite a pill to swallow. I also can’t imagine that mall rent is cheap.