Arizona mini-chain Matt’s Big Breakfast is likely coming to Austin soon. The restaurant, which offers breakfast and lunch, has decided to franchise to other states, with the city as a prime target.
Matt’s Big Breakfast offers classic breakfast fare all day, like griddle cakes, waffles, and egg scrambles. Lunch, served after 11 a.m., includes sandwiches like BLTs or burgers and salads. The restaurant was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network in 2008, which mentioned that the wait on weekends can be upwards of two hours.
“There’s lots of good breakfast out there, but there aren’t a ton of places doing great breakfast with from-scratch ingredients,” explained owner Matt Pool in a phone interview. With four locations in Arizona, he decided to franchise after a successful expansion to the Phoenix airport (which, like Austin’s airport, has a focus on local businesses). After making sure that they could replicate what they do while still “focusing on the ingredients first and foremost,” he started to look for franchise locations.
Pool honed in on Austin because he has visited the city and loves it (calling the food scene “off the charts”). He’s also a fan of the university connection, as the downtown restaurant gets traffic from nearby Arizona State University. As far as location, he’s open to different neighborhoods, explaining, “We’re breakfast. It’s not a certain type of people.”
Pool plans to keep the menu mostly the same for an Austin location, but add a few local specialties, dictated by the restaurant’s strict standards for sourcing ingredients. He hopes to have two to four new locations in the next two years, and is open to more than one in Austin.
- Matt’s Big Breakfast [Official]
- Matt’s Big Breakfast [Facebook]