It is 8:15 a.m.
The alarm is blaring and class starts in 15 minutes. Adrenaline and panic force instant arousal, allowing just enough time for throwing on something from the floor.
For many college students, this can be a typical morning schedule – leaving breakfast last on the agenda.
Fortunately, for Ohio State students, the most important meal of the day is coming to High Street.
Cerealicious Café will open soon on the corner of 16th Avenue and High Street, said Jeff Coyle, part-owner of the café.
“Our slogan is ‘What’s in your bowl?'” Coyle said. “Basically, it’s a mixture of cereal and toppings. Mix any cereal you want with any topping you want and it’s going to taste incredible. Pick your favorite, then flavor it.”
Upon ordering, the customer will watch employees of the restaurant put two scoops of cereal and one scoop of a topping of their choice, into a carryout container for them, Coyle said.
The customer will then have the choice to get skim, 2 percent, whole or soy milk for themselves, he said.
One of these three-scoop bowls costs $3.50, Coyle said.
Meghan Griesemer, a senior in English, is skeptical.
“It sounds like a cheap meal, but they have to have the cereal I like for me to go there,” she said.
Coyle said Cerealicious Café will have 30 cereals to choose from, including favorites from four major brands: Kellogg’s, Quaker Oats, Post and General Mills. It will also have 40 different kinds of toppings, including fresh fruit, freeze-dried fruit, cookies, candy and nuts.
“The toppings are the key,” Coyle said. “The whole country is crazed on health right now. Eat cereal, live longer.”
Cerealicious Café will sell mostly cereal, but also has coffee, tea, six oatmeal specials and smoothies, Coyle said.
If the customer chooses to eat inside the purple and green, 25-seat restaurant instead of taking their breakfast to class, wireless Internet will be available as well as television sets playing classic cartoons and reruns of old favorites like “Saved by the Bell,” Coyle said.
“If it’s a never-ending bowl of cereal and they have plasma screens, I’ll eat there all day” said Lennon Meyer, a senior in welding engineering. “But you can get the same thing on your meal plan.”
For Coyle, his wife Suzie Coyle, and their business partner, Dave Frey, this will be one of many Cerealicious Cafés.
The team plans to open two restaurants a month, totaling 100 Cerealicious Cafés within the next five years, Coyle said.
He said they already have plans to open restaurants at Bowling Green, Kent State and UCLA, as well as five in Manhattan, several in Florida and one in Chicago.
“I think that it would be better if it was all you can eat,” Griesemer said. “But it’s right on my way to campus and I like the fact that I will be able to take it with me.”
Cerealicious Café will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Coyle said. However, he adds, these hours are subject to change depending on business.
