Cereal-only restaurant looks to milk new format

PHILADELPHIA -- How's this for thinking outside the box: a cafe with jammies-clad servers pouring cereal day and night, topping it off with everything from fruit to malted milk balls, and serving it in "bowls" resembling takeout Chinese containers.

Cereality Cereal Bar & Cafe, which opened its first sit-down cafe yesterday on the University of Pennsylvania campus, is a sugarcoated -- and tongue-in-cheek -- homage to what your mother always told you was the most important meal of the day. But she probably never dished out bowls of Froot Loops and Cap'n Crunch topped with Pop Rocks.

Behind glass-door kitchen-style cabinets at Cereality are 30 varieties of brand-name cold cereal. Customers order from "cereologists," whose most popular mix is two 8-ounce scoops with one of 36 toppings, plus regular, flavored, or soy milk for $2.95. Also offered are cereal bars and made-to-order cereal smoothies and yogurt blends.

"This is great because you can try all different kinds and not have to buy the whole box," said Penn freshman Erica Denhoff, 18, as she munched on a mix of Quaker Oat Squares, Corn Chex, and yogurt flax bark with skim milk.

Cofounders David Roth and Rick Bacher opened the first Cereality in Arizona State University's student union, last year. The Boulder, Colo.-based company wants to open more than a dozen Cerealities next year on campuses, hospital lobbies, airports, and office buildings.