Kellogg’s opens cereal cafe in Times Square

Kellogg’s NYC opened this week in Times Square with an all-day menu of cereals and toppings, along with a surprise gift with each bowl. Your choices are dispensed from a wall of windowed cabinets.

It’s an update of the old, beloved Horn & Hardart cafeteries, where you put nickels into the slots to get your mac and cheese, meatloaf and other comfort foods.  Or, you could compare the concept to Amazon or Redbox lockers with windows.  And surprise gifts are nothing new to those of us who dug to the bottom of a Cracker Jax box to find our little plastic chotchke.

Whichever your comparison, the new restaurant is charging $7.50 for a large bowl of Kellogg’s cereal, milk and toppings, and $6.50 for a small bowl, according to New York Eater.

But these are gourmet toppings.  Things like green tea powder to flavor up a bowl of Rice Krispies, and ground coffee to tone down the sweetness of Frosted Mini-Wheats.

That’s the concept of the two star chefs who talked Kellogg’s into this cereal-ery, and who created the menu.  If it’s a success, the Kellogg’s restaurant concept could be served up in other malls.

The New York Times describes it as a marketing ploy to leverage the history of the 110-year-old brand in the wake of soggy cereal sales for Kellogg’s, and also for General Mills.

Or, you could choose to eat in one of the great restaurants in Times Square that have nothing to do with a national brand or chain.

Here’s our list of best non-chain restaurants in Times Square.

Kellogg’s NYC is at 1600 Broadway, a couple of blocks from all the other branded stores, including M&M and Hershey.