What’s the purpose of a restaurant?
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There are nine Hope Breakfast Bar locations.Purpose Restaurant Group
When Brian Ingram started Purpose Restaurant Group in 2019, he wanted to develop a business model that would support and give back to the community. Of course, he didn’t know just how much his community would be needing him very soon.
Ingram, along with his wife Sarah and business partner Jeff Bornmann, opened the first Hope Breakfast Bar in St. Paul, Minnesota. They were mostly self-funded because, as Ingram tells it, “When you say you want to give away a lot of the money that you bring in, [traditional lenders are] not big fans of that.”
The restaurant was serving their signature cake batter pancakes for just a few months before schools in the area closed because of COVID. Ingram, concerned for the children who were not getting the meals they normally would at school, started offering free meals.
“We just said, ‘We’re going to feed as many people as we can.’ And we thought that was going to be it. We were going to go bankrupt, and we were going to start over,” said Ingram, who serves as CEO and Chef of Purpose Restaurant Group.
They didn’t go bankrupt, and after a few months, the fact that they were still going strong through the pandemic became an asset. Hope Breakfast Bar was going “gangbusters,” he said. Although the indoor space was small, they “petitioned to close the road in front of our restaurant, and basically one city block became our outdoor patio,” Ingram said.
“We started having opportunities because so many restaurants were going out [of business],” he said. Suddenly, small independent operators without the financials of the bigger chains were getting a shot. “It was a very difficult time to navigate, but if you were willing to do it and risk it, you could make a deal.”
They opened the second Hope Breakfast Bar location in the West Loop area of St. Paul in 2021.
From there, more opportunities arose to open additional Hope Breakfast Bar locations in the surrounding St. Paul and Twin Cities area. They also opened a craft bar called The Gnome, which recently closed, and an Italian spot, Salt & Flour, near Target Field, the Twins MLB Stadium.
But the bulk of the growth has been in the Hope Breakfast Bar brand. Each new restaurant has a few specialty menu items it tests, but for the most part, the menus are the same throughout the different locations. Cake batter pancakes in various seasonal varieties are a favorite, as are their bacon and chorizo tacos, chicken and waffles, and breakfast bowls, which have really taken off in the last few years, Ingram said.
There are nine Hope Breakfast Bar locations, including a counter-service version at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul, with more on the horizon. As they’ve spread out, they look for convenient locations with ample parking and a healthy daytime population. Locations near hotels and hospitals work well. Hope Breakfast Bars give travelers an alternative to a hotel breakfast, and “families sometimes just need to get out of the hospital and go have a meal,” Ingram said.
On every Hope Breakfast Bar table, there are “Share Your Hope” cards, inviting guests to write down personal hopes and dreams. “And unfortunately, the last six years have been a trying time in the world,” Ingram said. He recently found himself serving meals to the community after the ICE raids in Minneapolis.
Separately, Hope Breakfast Bar has donated to families of police officers killed in the line of duty and children lost to gun violence.
They don’t believe in donating a portion of sales; instead, they give an entire day of sales, Ingram said.
“You’ve got to give 100%,” he said. “We don’t take out costs. We don’t take out anything. We’re just going to give it all, and I think that just resonates with people because it’s authentic, it’s real, it costs the business something real. It’s not, ‘I’m going to give you the leftovers.’ I’m going to give you what we made. We’re going to walk with you on this. So, I think that’s what’s really been the catalyst for Hope, is that model.”
