Scrambled! Offers Fast Casual Breakfast
Since Oscar Rodriguez was just 22 when he opened Scrambled! in Layton, it follows that he gave a youthful spin to the traditional breakfast concept. I recently interviewed him for a Standard-Examiner story.
The fast casual format, online ordering and drive-through windows are continually growing in popularity across the country. But when it comes to breakfast, old-school restaurants still have servers come to your table to take your order. At Scrambled!, you order and pay at the counter, or online, or at the drive-through.
“Initially we were planning to do a more traditional diner, with sit-down service,” Rodriguez said. “But if we had done a sit-down diner during Covid, we wouldn’t have made it.”
“Also, fast-casual creates more turnover and gives our customers their independence to place their order, and leave when they want,” Rodriguez said. “I have regulars who come in every day and get a cup of coffee and do their paperwork for the day.”
The drive-through window turned into a lifeline just weeks after Rodriguez opened his eatery at 2151 N. Hill Field Road on March 7, 2020. On March 16, the Covid pandemic shut down in-restaurant dining in Utah.
The drive-through kept the business going for several weeks, until restaurants were able to re-open. Rodriguez said the window is still pretty busy, since the restaurant opens Monday through Saturday at 5 a.m. “And we have a niche in this area, being accessible before anyone else is open.”
He added, “We’re not as fast as McDonald’s, because we make everything as it’s ordered, but we try to stay to a six-minute margin,” said Rodriguez.
Scrambled! offers the old-fashioned breakfast favorites like pancakes, waffles, burritos, biscuits and gravy, omelets, even Utah scones — but also trendy items like avocado toast and egg-white veggie omelet. There’s a full menu of lattes, cappuccino and other drinks, with the coffee supplied by Daily Rise Roasting Company in Layton.
There’s a lunch menu of burgers, chili verde, sandwiches and salads, but breakfast items make up about 75 percent of the orders, even during lunch hours, Rodriguez said.
If you’re making your first visit, you may want to go on a weekday, or go early. On Saturdays and Sundays, the line of customers often goes all the way out to the door from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., he said.
By the time Rodriguez opened Scrambled! at age 22, he had spent eight years in the restaurant business. He started washing dishes at age 14. At 18, he began working at the Manoli’s, a Greek small-plates restaurant in Salt Lake City. He stayed there for two-and-a-half years, while earning a B.A. degree in political science and law at the University of Utah.
“That’s where I really refined my cooking skills,” said Rodriguez. “Chef Manoli taught me a lot about running a restaurant.”
He spent ten months working as a law clerk, before deciding to open his own restaurant.
“My mom (Claudia Flores) wanted to do a restaurant for a long time, but didn’t know where to start,” he said. “I had some background in restaurants, and reached out to mentors to see what I needed to do.”
He decided to focus on breakfast, “because we don’t have enough breakfast places here in Davis County,” Rodriguez said. “Also, I like to get my day going early and have my afternoons free.”
He and Claudia found a former donut shop that had sat vacant for awhile, in a small Hill Field Road strip mall, just north of Antelope Drive.
Its close proximity to Hill Air Force Base was an advantage. They often get people heading to work, or on their way home from a graveyard shift in the early morning.
“And since we make just about everything in-house, if it’s a slow morning, it gives us time to prep,” Rodriguez added.
He thought of the name Scrambled! while “trying to think of something marketable, something trendy like the restaurants in New York City, and I wanted to incorporate yellow into our logo.”
Claudia cooks at the restaurant four days a week, Rodriguez said. The fragrant cinnamon rolls, slathered with cream cheese frosting, are her recipe. And so is the pork chile verde, which is used in Claudia’s Pork Chile Verde Burritos, the Huevos con Chile Verde, and the Pork Chile Verde Nachos.
“My mother’s chile verde very is popular with everyone who tries it,” Rodriguez said. “Ours is very authentic with a Mexican flavor.”
Top seller is Oscar’s Wicked Skillet ($10.85) —bacon, ham, sausage, cheddar jack cheese, onions, jalapenos, and tomatoes, over a mound of hash browns. It’s topped with two eggs, cooked any way.
“People just like the flavor of it, because there’s a lot of flavors in one item,” he said.
Avocado toast has become the second-most popular item since going on the menu about six months ago.
“I felt that we needed some healthier items,” he said. “And I found this great sprouted wheat bread at Stoneground Bakery.”
Thinly sliced avocado fan out across the chewy-textured bread, liberally sprinkled with cracked black pepper and a little olive oil. It comes with turkey sausage and an two eggs, any style.
Another healthy option is the Egg White Veggie Omelet, “which is our most popular omelet, because it’s light while a lot of breakfast items are heavy, and we put a lot of fresh veggies in it.”
On the sweeter, more hefty side, Utah-style deep-fried scones, with either honey butter or cinnamon butter, are a customer favorite.
Just about everything is made in-house, except the bread, which comes from Stoneground Bakery in Salt Lake City, and the hash browns. “We go through 700 pounds of hash browns a week, and that’s too much volume to do in-house,” he said. “Our pancakes and waffles are house-made, from a cake batter recipe that I converted.”
He hopes to open other Scrambled! locations, especially in Clinton where he lives. But he’s not planning to expand to a dinner menu. At first, the restaurant stayed open until 4 p.m., but Rodriguez found that business really died down by 3 p.m. He used to be closed on Mondays, but now that he closes at 2 p.m., they are able to staff the restaurant to be open on Mondays.
“It was an under-utilization of resources,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez pointed out that there are numerous dinner-type restaurants in the area, many of them national chains. “I don’t think we would be competitive enough to open for dinner. You would have to drive past about 18 other restaurants to get to us.”
And he plans to eventually return to college for an MBA. “But, the restaurant business is something I’ll always do.”
Location: 2151 N. Hill Field Road
Contact: https://www.scrambledut.com. Or 385-393- 8684
Hours: Monday-Friday, 5 a.m.-2 p.m.; Saturday, 5 a.m.- 3 p.m.; Sunday,
7 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Prices: $4.65-$12.65
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