Sweet Dreams: Ina Pinkney Turns From Dessert to Breakfast
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Though the Dessert Kitchen flourished, Pinkney eventually began to tire of the grueling routine. “After a while,” she explains, “baking 30 pans of brownies a week is not fun.” She also longed for more sustained contact with her ever-growing list of regular customers. So the dessert maven began formulating plans for Ina’s Kitchen, a small restaurant that would be open only in the morning and early afternoon and serve breakfast and her popular baked goods. “It was a niche I thought I could fill that was not crowded with competitors in the city,” says Pinkney.
The breakfast restaurant idea also seemed to make good economic sense to Pinkney and her business partner Elaine Farrell, a former real estate broker. At a time when diners are watching every penny they spend, says Pinkney, “a lot of people can’t afford $30 for a nice dinner, but they can come here and feel special spending $10 for a breakfast.”
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