Here's How to Breakfast Properly

It's called breakfast, and, yes, there are some rules...

With the launch of our Blackbird Breakfast Club pass (sorry, it already sold out, but you can join the waiting list here and we’ll notify you as soon as more spots open up), we’ve got breakfast on the mind. Which is why we tapped our friend Colin James Nagy, who—in addition to being a regular columnist for Skift and co-founder of Why is this interesting—knows a thing or two about the benefits of a good business breakfast. Follow him on Threads at @Colinjnagy.

In my early days in New York, my friend Noah Brier and I made a regular habit of inviting people we found interesting and/or inspiring to breakfast at Balthazar. There wasn’t a bunch of underlying strategy behind it: the types of people that showed up to an invitation like this were the people we wanted to meet. And surprisingly, the plan worked. Many of those initial cold invites evolved over time into great friendships, and several positive creative and business outcomes came out of it.

Key to this was the fact that it was only breakfast. It was a low-stakes game. You could be in and out in a tight 45, or linger a bit longer over coffee if the conversation took a few fruitful twists and turns. The breakfast meeting is a sharp, tactical weapon, one that can be employed for a lot of leverage (and fun!). But crucial to making this work is obviously a counterparty that can navigate the morning maelstrom of life, kids, school drop-offs, and gravity to arrive on time, and, most importantly, you need a restaurant that knows how to run a breakfast service.

There’s a quiet alchemy behind it. First, there needs to be a warm welcome for repeat visitors, and guests should be promptly seated, no “wait at the bar for a complete party” nonsense. Noah and I racked up so many 8:30 a.m. breakfasts at Balthazar that the wonderful maitre’d at the time, Carrie, would surreptitiously seat us at a power banquette, despite us not having any discernible media power or influence at the time. She always treated our guests kindly. The morning arrivals worked like clockwork.

Analog touches also help. I love restaurants that still have newsprint laid out for that early wave of guests to peruse. In New York, it is undoubtedly the Post, the Financial Times, and the New York Times, but bonus points for some wildcard international papers like Le Figaro, or as was my mid-aughts preference, The Guardian, stealthily held for me by the aforementioned Carrie and enjoyed over that first cup of coffee while waiting for a guest to arrive.

Then, another matter of great importance: prompt service. That coffee has to be out quickly, and orders should be in within the first 10 minutes. Knowing the cadence and context of the morning breakfast rush, where it is okay to be crisp and turn tables, is key to this. But also, similar to how a swan is graceful over water, yet paddling feverishly below, you don’t want to let the guests know you are running a clockwork operation.

Seating is important. Again, here Balthazar shines: there are nooks and crannies to the right where you can toil in anonymity and read the paper like Nick Denton used to do. Or there are areas that connote a certain pecking order or social network like the banquettes on the left side of the room. But the balance is vitally important. Great restaurants don’t just cater to the boldfaced names; they also cater to the dot connectors and neighborhood stalwarts: maintaining a balance of the big egos and the people who regularly support and dine with you is key.

Then, there is the goodbye. A crisp delivery of the check, a jacket retrieved from a convenient perch, a warm thank you to the hosts, and onward into the day. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, but if done well, you’ve given yourself some inspiration and real-life social networking before most people have reached their desks. And that is the power of the breakfast.