Why new cafe trend may be a cereal success

I’M having a sugar headache just reading about Glasgow’s newest cafe. It’s a ‘cereal cafe’ and ‘dessert place’ so already my head is about to explode with mixed messages.

Isn’t breakfast supposed to be all slow-energyreleasing and healthy, with porridge and fruit and whatnot?

Turns out this cafe is not actually open in the mornings, it’s more of an after-lunch and early-evening kind of place, where you can choose from more than 40 brands of British and American cereals and add a whole bunch of stuff to create your own candy-crazed concoction.

Macaroon milk, marshmallows and chocolates are just some of the choices, and if that’s not enough to make your dentist feel a bit faint, you can also pack your glass with candyfloss and surround it with peanut butter.

Remember when juice bars were all the rage? Remember when you could stick on your trainers, skip into the local health cafe, down that kale and cucumber smoothie, and feel really good about yourself – because, you know, it made you look like you were into yoga and stuff, and could run a 10k before tucking in to a tasty grilled-chicken and asparagus lunch?

ACEREAL and dessert cafe sounds like the sort of place you’d slink into only under cover of darkness, sporting shades and a low-brimmed hat, not making eye contact except to hand over your cash (only cash, don’t leave a plastic trail…).

Glasgow’s first cereal bar only opened on Monday, so it’s too soon to tell whether it will be a sweet success or a flash-in-the-popcorn-pan. But it comes on the back of a whole raft of similar ventures in the US and England.

Apparently, cereal giant Kellogg’s is even getting in on the act, considering backing a pop-up cafe in Australia in which its products will appear in lunch dishes, drinks and desserts. Poached egg salad with gluten free Special K, anyone? The reason for this cereal cafe explosion appears to be down to the dwindling popularity of the traditional breakfast. Cereal sales are declining and a recent survey by market research company Mintel, found about 40 per cent of millennials believe cereal is “inconvenient” for breakfast because they have to clean up after eating it.

But I have the answer! You don’t need to do anything fancy with your pops and puffs to regenerate interest in cereals, silly. Just bring back those little choke-hazard plastic figures and collectable cards you used to get in the boxes, and you’re sorted. Everyone likes a freebie.