How The Smell Of Breakfast Sandwiches Forced Starbucks To Rethink Its Menu

The smell of a breakfast sandwich coming together is one of life's great comforts: The sizzle of bacon crisping in its own fat, the nutty sweetness of bread turning golden in the toaster, the soft hiss of eggs meeting a hot pan. It's the scent that feels like a Sunday morning. Just perfect ... unless you're in a coffee shop. In 2008, Starbucks had to make the hard decision to temporarily stop serving warm breakfast sandwiches because their savory aroma was overpowering the very thing they were famous for — the smell of coffee.

The coffee giant announced that it would stop serving warm breakfast sandwiches as part of a broader turnaround plan and shift its focus to healthier breakfast choices and high-quality baked goods. Howard D. Schultz, Starbucks' chairman and chief executive, was quoted in The New York Times saying, "The scent of the warm sandwiches interferes with the coffee aroma in our stores." According to Forbes, the move was welcomed: "The warming breakfast aroma is its biggest problem, overwhelming the coffee aroma that Starbucks views as critical to its experience," one financial analyst noted.

The sandwiches returned six months later, with better ingredients, lower cooking temperatures, leaner bacon, and a scent engineered to stay in its lane. Cut to today, and Starbucks sells premade sandwiches, procured fresh every day from local catering companies, leaving their trained baristas to focus on the coffee experience. 

In the restaurant business, scent can range from background notes to a marketing tool as potent as a catchy slogan or a well-placed ad. The right aroma can stir up hunger, evoke nostalgia, and even draw people in off the sidewalk. Chains like McDonald's and Cinnabon have long capitalized on this, letting the smell of fries or cinnamon rolls spill into the air as an open invitation. Some brands lean into their signature scent even more heavily. Auntie Anne's, for instance, once launched a limited-edition perfume inspired by its trademark pretzel aroma. The novelty scent, fittingly called Knead, sold out online in under 10 minutes. 

It's a reminder that in food retail, the smallest details can create unforgettable dining experiences, something Starbucks has long understood and built into every part of its business. For example, they were one of the early movers when it came to accepting online payments, so much so that at one point in 2021, they had the second-most downloaded payments app in America, behind only Apple Pay.

In this context, the Starbucks management's decision to revamp their breakfast to let the coffee shine shouldn't come as a surprise. Think about it — if Starbucks was willing to embrace new tech just to save customers a few minutes waiting for change, cutting out hot breakfasts to protect one of its most valuable assets — the scent of coffee — seems like a small price to pay. However, those Starbucks breakfast sandwiches? Let's just say they're not the best.