IHOP is bringing back its Stuffed French Toast starting Monday as the chain looks to leverage consumer clamor and brand nostalgia to improve its sales, according to Lawrence Kim, the chain's president.
While the Stuffed French Toast is technically a limited-time offering, the brand plans to extend it, especially if it meets with a rapturous consumer response, Kim said. The brand last served the cream-filled breakfast item in 2020, and the long absence from the menu has built up consumer anticipation for its possible return, Kim said.
“It is the number one most requested item and there's a lot of fan love for this product,” Kim said.
A buzzy product launch could help build momentum as IHOP remains in the early stages of a traffic recovery. After several quarters of slipping or stagnant same-store sales, the brand notched a 1.5% comps gain in Q2. This was driven in part by a greater focus on value, including a $6 value menu that launched earlier this year.
Given how long Stuffed French Toast had been off menus, IHOP had an opportunity to rework it in hopes of meeting, and then exceeding, those consumer expectations.
Giving fans what they want, only more of it
IHOP began designing its new Stuffed French Toast about a year ago, Kim said, a process that required numerous iterations of the recipe and design. The item consists of French Toast stuffed full of vanilla sweet cream and topped with either glazed strawberries or a blueberry topping.
The major challenge was finding a way to satiate consumer nostalgia while also improving the core product, Kim said. The brand analyzed historic comments and asked fans what changes they would like to see in future versions of Stuffed French Toast.
Most consumers wanted a simple restoration of the beloved menu item, Kim said, with many saying the dish was “practically perfect in every way.” There was one concrete ask in the feedback, however: Consumers wanted more cream filling.
“We actually designed a proprietary injection process with our supplier to add more cream, so that from corner to corner when you cut into the Stuffed French Toast, you get a bite of sweet cream in practically every cut and bite that you take,” Kim said.
But adding more cream was easier said than done, Kim said, and the new injection process at times posed technical problems.
“We wanted to ensure it delivered on the promise of what guests remembered,” Kim said. “With the additional cream — corner-to-corner — we wanted to ensure that it didn't explode in the process.”
Kim personally saw or tasted more than 100 variations of the dish, but others were tested that didn’t make it up the chain of command.
“I can't imagine how many others our chefs and the suppliers went through,” Kim said.
Breakfast and value supplement nostalgia
The Stuffed French Toast is part of a broader emphasis by IHOP on reaffirming its breakfast and value positioning, while reinvigorating consumer nostalgia for the brand through specialty items.
While the Stuffed French Toast is not cheap — a plate of two triangles costs $13.88 according to a brand spokesperson — IHOP is going out of its way to position the product as a luxury that justifies the price tag.
The chain’s advertising for the product features actors wearing parodies of the costumes of pre-Revolutionary French aristocrats and suggests it’s an occasion for indulgent, celebratory dining.
Value offerings are often accompanied, or balanced, by premium products and LTOs, with the latter menu niches drawing consumers on special occasions or offering trade-up opportunities.
The Stuffed French Toast also reiterates the chain’s breakfast emphasis. About 75% of the brand’s orders center around breakfast, according to the press release announcing the item's return.
Kim said breakfast-type items, like French toast, pancakes and eggs, are the core of the chain’s occasions even well outside morning dayparts.
“We’re a 24/7 business,” Kim said. “It's breakfast every day, every hour.”
IHOP's association with breakfast makes Stuffed French Toast a potential windfall for the chain, Kim said.
“It's not random; it's total fandom that brought this to life, and the breakfast equity of [Stuffed] French Toast is such a tie-in with IHOP,” Kim said.
