Convenience stores are eating fast food chain breakfast

Fast food restaurants are losing breakfast customers to convenience stores.

The morning meal traffic to fast food chains increased by 1% in the three months ended in July, while visits to food convenience stores rose 9% in the same period, according to the Circan Market Research firm.

“In the long run, convenience stores have really participated in the food service in general, but morning food has been its strong demand,” said David Portalatin, a senior vice president of Circana and advisor to the food service industry, he told CNBC, noting that the trend has been largely driven so the group calls “food convenience stores.”

For decades, McDonald's And their rivals have tried to attract consumers away from home to eat their offerings early in the morning, betting that comfort and unique articles win diners. While fast food chains have made some incursions, 87% of what consumers eat and drink in the morning comes from their own refrigerators or pantries, according to Portalatin. That leaves many opportunities for fast food chains, and any other person who wants a portion of the breakfast cake.

Before the pandemic, fast food chains began to see a new rival for their breakfast customers: convenience stores. Regional chains like wawa in the northeastern and Casey General Store In the west, they expanded their reach and invested in their food service options, taking pages of the play books of fast food companies.

For a while, blockages and change to hybrid work reversed these market share gains. But in the three months they ended in July, food convenience stores once again won the advantage in the battle to serve consumer breakfast, according to Portalatin.

CIRCANA separates food convenience stores such as BuC-EE and Sheetz from the industry in general, although more chains can fit soon under that umbrella. 7-Eleven, the greatest comfort, or store C, in the United States, plans to invest more in its prepared food business, inspired by the success of your Japanese business. The C-Store Racetrac store announced Wednesday that you are buying Belly For around $ 566 million, although it is not clear what their plans for the sandwiches chain includes beyond expanding its footprint.

In recent years, more diners have been observing their budgets, aware of the increase in menu prices and a adjusted labor market.

Morning traffic year after year to fast food chains each quarter has fallen during the last three years, according to income management solutions, which advises restaurants on how to increase sales and profits. In the second quarter, visits to fast food breakfast fell 8.7%.

To see the struggles, you are not looking for McDonald's, which dominates the fast service breakfast category.

“… The part of breakfast day is the most economically sensitive part of the day, because it is the easiest part of a stressed consumer to omit breakfast or choose breakfast at home,” said the McDonald's CEO, Chris Kempczinski, about the company's profit call at the end of July. “And we, as well as the rest of the industry, we are seeing that the part of breakfast is absolutely the weakest part of the day.”

McDonald morning visits represented 33.5% of their traffic in the first half of 2019, but fell to 29.9% in the first half of 2025, according to Plant.AI data. To try to increase traffic, the chain has included breakfast items at its new additional value meals, including an agreement for a McMuffin sausage with egg with a brown hash and a small coffee for $ 5.

To reverse the breakfast slide, fast food chains are taking clues from their competition. After years of convenience stores that seek fast food chains for ideas on how to grow sales of prepared foods, from the installation of order kiosks to new menu elements, the dynamics have turned.

“[Quick-service restaurants] They are looking at night sales and early sales in the morning, and are directly looking at the convenience stores and saying: 'What is working? How can we bring that to our stores? “Jeff Lenard told CNBC of the National Association of convenience stores, Jeff Lenard.

Prepared foods have offered a life line for convenience stores, since the demand for gasoline, tobacco and lottery tickets has fallen over time. General food service sales in the industry reached $ 121 billion in 2024, according to NCS data.

Most customers visit the gas pump during the morning and afternoon hours, on their way to and from work, presenting the perfect opportunity for C stores to sell breakfast or dinner. This year, 72% of consumers surveyed by Intouch Insight said they saw C stores as a real alternative to fast food chains, compared to 56% a year ago and 45% two years ago.

In general terms, C stores that have focused on fresh food have been winning more customers.

For example, Wawa has seen its customer base grow by 11.5% since 2022, while McDonald's fast food chains, Burger King and Wendy's I have seen that its combined customer base shrinks 3.5% at the same time, according to Indagari data, a transaction data analysis firm.

Most of the 1,170 responded to an Insight Insight survey for CNBC said they have bought breakfast made at a store C in the morning in the last three months. Forty -eight percent of respondents said that when they choose breakfast from a convenience store, they are replacing a visit that could otherwise make a fast food restaurant such as McDonald's or Dunkin '.

Buying coffee and breakfast in a store C will probably be cheaper than doing it at home. But consumers perceive it as “good explosion for their money”, according to Sarah Beckett, Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Intouch Insight.

In addition, C-Store customers get a wide amplitude of options. In addition to coffee, service stations sell energy drinks, protein and yogurt shakes. And customers can collect a large bar or banana to accompany their breakfast sandwich. Fast food chains lack this type of variety.

But, above all, what matters for consumers is food itself.

“While [a] The convenience store in general has a tail wind of being a lower price, the final differentiator, and what will really separate the winners of the losers, is that quality aspect, “said the Circana portal.

Brady Caviness, a 33 -year -old account executive in Bailiwick who lives in Minneapolis, told CNBC that he gives himself to a breakfast pizza from the Casey General Store when he travels. If you are back at home, where there is no casey nearby, it will stop by McDonald's, Dunkin 'or Starbucks If you are in humor to buy your breakfast.

The headquarters in Iowa is the third C -store C of the country and claims to be the fifth largest pizza concept based on its number of locations. Casey reported a sales growth in the same 5.6% store for its prepared foods and dispensed drinks for the three months ending July 31.

Like the Mexican pizza of Taco Bell, Casey's breakfast pizza, cheese covered, scrambled eggs and a selection of bacon, sausages or vegetables, a cult has grown since its launch in 2001.

“I think Casey's is something unique,” said Caviness. “All my life, I have had the McMuffins eggs.”