Egg on a Roll, a breakfast sandwich restaurant open for breakfast and lunch, will be opening in Dinkytown near Mesa Pizza in January.
Starting originally as a food truck idea, Adam Bresina, Egg on a Roll’s founder, said he chose to focus on eggs when he created his restaurant because eggs go with everything.
“The whole idea behind Egg on a Roll is that Egg on a Roll stands for the brioche roll that we put it on, but also like the rolling start to your day, like you’re on the go, you’re on the roll,” Bresina said.
Bresina said he switched from his fine-dining background of 10 years to a restaurant- style like Egg on a Roll to connect with the community and get back to his roots.
Director of Operations Austin Kaiser said that compared to restaurants like Caribou Coffee and Bruegger’s Bagels, this restaurant’s sandwiches are bigger but cheaper. A sandwich at Egg on a Roll costs less than $10.
The only places in Dinkytown that can compare to Egg on a Roll’s grab-and-go style are Chipotle and Potbelly Sandwich Shop, but neither creates breakfast sandwiches, Bresina said.
All the ingredients are made fresh with the completed sandwich put in a blue foil bag to keep it warm throughout people’s walk to campus, Bresina said.
“The idea is that you’re going to be walking through campus and everybody’s going to have these little blue bags in their hands,” Bresina said. “When you get to class, the nice thing with the blue bag is you can just tear it open like this and then it’s like a little tray. So you can eat your sandwich there or if you’re eating it on the go, you can use the bag as a mask.”
Ordering for Egg on a Roll is done online, either via an app called Local by Toast or the online system in the restaurant. Bresina said when the restaurant goes viral on social media, the business receives the most customers.
“We thought that college students are very used to using technology. So we first think that they’re going to understand the online ordering very easily. They’re going to get involved with getting the app and doing it that way. Then they’re going to spread the word online on social media and on TikTok about these new sandwiches that are coming,” Bresina said.
Dinkytown will not be the first place in Minneapolis to experience Egg on a Roll. The first location of the restaurant opened in Downtown Minneapolis in the North Loop neighborhood in 2023. Bresina said he has plans to expand to Northeast Minneapolis and Sioux Falls in March, with six locations by June 2025 and opening 10 a year for the next five years or about 58 new Egg on a Roll stores by 2030.
Ben Qualley was Bresina’s first hire in 2023. He said some people who ate at Egg on a Roll when the restaurant first opened are still coming.
“We would see (Joe) walking out of his condo over here and we’d literally meet him on the sidewalk and just do a handoff,” Qualley said. “So it’s really fun that we (have) become a part of the neighborhood.”
Egg on a Roll has partnered with several companies like Dogwood Coffee and Cry Baby Craig’s hot sauce, to elevate their menu.
Bresina said a hard launch for Egg on a Roll will happen in the middle of January 2025, when college students return from winter break.
