Customers in the North East can be among the first in the UK to to try a Popeyes breakfast as the Southern fried chicken company trails its first ever breakfast menu at the Metrocentre .
What's more they can enjoy a tasty treat for free this weekend - if they're quick - as it will be handing out free muffins to its first 50 customers this Saturday to celebrate the launch. The popular American chain, renowned for its Louisiana-style chicken, has picked just two of its UK branch locations for the trail - and Gateshead is one of them.
Besides egg and cheese muffins - with bacon and sausage additions also available - the new menu includes the likes of a Big Breakfast roll, which is a bun with a sausage patty, egg, streaky bacon and American cheese, alongside Cajun hash browns and buttermilk biscuits with cinnamon sugar or nutella. It launched on Tuesday and adds to an array of options on sale at the restaurant which is best known for its 12-hour marinated chicken dishes which are breaded in a secret recipe and fried to create its trademark so-called "shatter-crunch" bite.
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The 98-seater Popeyes opened last August in The Qube, upstairs in the Yellow Mall of the Metrocentre, and its launch, accompanied by a New Orleans-style party, saw a huge queue of excited customers. Now there's set to be another queue there when the breakfast giveaway starts on March 18, from 8am.
It will be open to over-18s and applies to the first 50 in the queue, who will be able to choose from a single sausage or bacon; egg and cheese, or an egg and cheese muffin.
Neil Williamson, the company's UK chief operating officer who is also a Geordie, said: “I am delighted to announce our Metrocentre restaurant has been selected as one of the first two sites to trial our brand-new breakfast menu. When we launched here last summer, our customers gave Popeyes such a huge, warm welcome to the region and helped this to become one of our most successful launches to date.
"Because of this, we knew we wanted to involve them in our menu expansion and give them the chance to try the breakfast first." The only other Popeyes in the UK to be serving the new breakfast menu is in Oxford.
Neil added: "Most global brands that come across to the UK are keen to take over the south first and often don’t consider the north until years later." He said that, being a Geordie, he had been keen to establish a regional branch of the restaurant in the early stages of the company's UK expansion and said "and here we are again with the expansion of our menu".
The company has not yet revealed whether the breakfast pilot will be extended elsewhere. It is currently said to be in the process of rolling out a drive-thru service nationally.
The full Popeyes breakfast menu
This is being served daily from 8am (9.30am Sundays) until 11am after which the main menu is available. Prices start from £2.99 and the Big Breakfast roll is £4.29.
● A Big Breakfast roll and a bacon roll
● Double or single bacon, egg and cheese muffins
● Double or single sausage, egg and cheese muffins
● Hash browns and Cajun hash browns
● Cinnamon sugar buttermilk biscuits
● Buttermilk biscuit with Nutella
● Egg and cheese muffins
● Tea and coffees, including lattes, flat whites and cappuccinos
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