Boom Life Archives - Toronto Lunch and Brunch - Boom Breakfast

SPC MEMBERSHIP

kara cheiko — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 18:47:51 +0000

Great news for students!

18% OFF Purchase of Meal & Drink with an SPC membership
Not Valid on in-store promotions.
Cannot be used on alcohol purchases.
Not valid on holidays.

All locations are enrolled and now accepting @spc_card
Our future is in our students and they need great food for brainpower!
Available for dine-in or take-out.
#boombreakfast #fairtradecoffee #organiccoffee @ricoffeeco #eggs #allocations #lunch #brunch

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FAMILY DAY 8-3

kara cheiko — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 16:22:42 +0000

Hello February!
Let us cook for you on FAMILY DAY! If you show up rolling out of bed, HOT CHOCOLATE is on the house for every person in their PJ’s (with a meal order)!
Please tag your friends and family to invite to the party!

February 19, all day.

#BoomPajamaParty #allocations #breakfast #lunch #brunch

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10kg #PaneDiTony !

kara cheiko — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:30:43 +0000

Have you secured your ballot??!?!
All it takes is a $25 Gift Certificate purchased from any location and you can win Tony’s 10 kg Panettone!

December 22 @ 1 pm : LIVE draw on Instagram @Boom_breakfast

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Holiday Menu overview : Tis The Season!

kara cheiko — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 19:04:27 +0000

That time of the year when the weather gets colder and our featured menu gets bolder!

Holiday Menu rundown:

BOOM BUBBLY* IS BACK! a blend of Cranberry, Orange Juice and Champagne (4oz)
*with purchase of any meal

S’mores Pancakes
triple stacked with crumbled graham cracker, chocolate chips, marshmallow fluff

Bananas Foster Waffle
fresh bananas, caramel sauce, whipped cream

Churro French Toast
crispy brioche with cinnamon sugar and caramel sauce

Salmon Run F’bread
cream cheese, atlantic smoked salmon, red onion, capers, mixed greens

Coliseum F’bread
bocconcini, roasted tomatoes prosciutto, arugula, olive oil, XL poached egg, mixed greens

Santorini F’bread
scrambled eggs with cherry tomatoes, spinach and feta cheese, topped with hollandaise sauce, mixed greens

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Thankful for Tony

kara cheiko — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 15:14:42 +0000

Written by Alex, server

As Thanksgiving is upon us, I start reflecting on what this holiday means to me, personally. I know it means different things for everyone but for me, it means family and how thankful and lucky I am to have such a great family. It’s sitting around the table enjoying a perfectly roasted turkey with garlic mashed potatoes or my mom’s festive rice. Most of all, I love listening to my mother’s stories of her growing up with her six siblings in Little Italy. She loves telling my brother and I how the art of conversation is lost on my generation. In her time, there were no cell phones but friends still managed to get together and talk. Don’t get me wrong, I think my mom is still cool and very adaptable to all the new technology but the romantic in me can’t help but agree with her that we have lost the art of conversation.

My favorite all time story my mother tells is the one where she “gave up religion for a cappuccino”. You see, growing up she had a favorite café she would hang out with her friends. According to her, there was this other café which dominated most of the business in the neighbourhood but only because they had the best corner but for mom, Sweet Dreams was more her beat. Sweet Dreams was like going to your friend’s house to hang out. The owner, Tony always treated you like family and made you feel so welcome but according to mom, he made the best cappuccinos, so much so that she would sometimes skip going to church on Sundays.

Fast forward to the present and Tony has moved on from Sweet Dreams and now runs the Boom family. His philosophy is still the same, when you come to Boom, Tony always makes you feel like you are part of the family and he is still making those great cappuccinos. I like that Boom still holds that little piece of the past for my mom. Who knows maybe Tony can teach my generation a thing or two about the art of conversation and just hanging out with friends over brunch.

So, on this Thanksgiving, I would like to thank Tony, not just for his repertoire of espresso-based coffees but having a place where friends & food collide over brunch.

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FALLing for BOOM!

kara cheiko — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 13:22:13 +0000

I’ve always loved this time of year, the time to say goodbye to summer and say hello to new beginnings; whether you are starting school for the first time or going back for a new year. It’s a time when you can sense a change in nature and almost feel the leaves changing their colours. Fall is a great season for all the romantics out there, the time to start thinking about bringing out your fall clothes. Students hanging out at cafes with their laptops drinking their lattes while working on their assignments.

I’m a full-time film student but I’m also part of the Boom Breakfast family. Most people wouldn’t think of hanging out at their place of employment on their days off but I love taking my laptop and grabbing a seat at the bar and work on whatever I have for school over coffee. Speaking of coffee, what should I have today? Perhaps a cappuccino or latte – I do love those silky smooth cortados but what am I saying, it’s Fall and nothing says Fall like pumpkin spiced latte.

As I’m enjoying my latte, I start thinking about what to have for breakfast? Should I go classic and have the Boom Power Breakfast? Nothing says classic like bacon and eggs, and those Boom frites are so addictive. Or do I feel like having an omelette, like the most perfect and fresh Farmer Gianni or perhaps the High Energy with the tasty turkey chorizo that just elevates the whole omelette. Maybe I’ll make my own: let’s see, spinach, caramelized onions, bocconcini cheese and I’m feeling adventurous so I’ll kick up a notch and add some smoked salmon – I think I’ve just created my own “Selfie”.

I’m feeling sweet and savoury this morning and the delectable Classic French toast with a side of crispy bacon and for colour I will add fresh strawberries with cinnamon and nothing says Canadian like pure maple syrup. I think we have a winner folks! Oh dear, Boom now has chicken and waffles served with maple butter, what is a girl to do.

I think I’m going to need another latte to help me with this important decision.

Written by Alex, server

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Jeff Cappellano Spills Secrets About What Makes Boom Great!

kara cheiko — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 17:54:34 +0000

In any restaurant, the people matter just as much as the food does. We pride ourselves on the fact that we work hard to get to know our customers and give them the best dining experience we can. We work together as a family, and treat everyone who walks into the door like a family. So, we thought it might be fun for you to get to know some of our family members. Meet Jeff Cappellano, the captain of Boom Vaughan. We caught hold of Jeff while he was somewhere in between inventory, greeting customers and sharing inside jokes with the staff. Here’s what he had to share with us.

Tell us about the highlights of where you grew up and what you did before you ended up at Boom?

I was born and raised in Toronto in a Canadian/Italian family. My early years were spent growing up on College St. and as I got older we moved to the High Park area of Toronto. Winter months were spent playing indoor ball, hockey and volleyball and in the summer I would play, coach, and umpire baseball at the Annette Baseball Association. My first job was at 14, as a busboy, a very bad bus boy. After high school, I spent 6 years working for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, as well as 6 summers working as a Camp Counselor in Pennsylvania at Camp Starlight. I graduated from George Brown College in Business Administration.

Tell us about you busboy Skills (or lack thereof)

When I was 14 and started out as a busboy at Churrasco Villa (Mt. Pleasant/Eglinton), I was refilling a guest’s glass of water and totally missed the glass, splashed water everywhere. We finally got it all cleaned up and I brought over a fresh glass, went to fill it again and missed the glass AGAIN. Disaster. Needless to say, I didn’t spend much more time as a busboy, Just ask Tony.

What made you get into the restaurant business?

My father opened Boom Breakfast in 2003, when I was 16. I would spend my weekends while in school working as a barista. The rest was really history. I always had a hand in the business while in school and doing some other side jobs. When I graduated from George Brown in 2011, we had just begun the planning stages for our Vaughan location. When we opened at the end of 2012, I came on Full-Time to manage our newest location. It’s been 3 1/2 years, and I’m still here.

What do you love most about Boom?

Boom feels, and has always felt, like home. I think a lot of our employees and guests will agree. Everyone is welcome, everyone is made to feel comfortable. We know a lot of our regulars by name, we know their order, they know what to expect when they come into our restaurants. I love the interactions with our guests and getting to know them, and then they bring their friends and families and we get to know them as well!

What do you think sets Boom apart from other breakfast places?

At Boom you will always see one of the family in the restaurant, no matter the location. We are always here. We play an active role in the business and really put our heart into it. We are knowledgeable of the products and we are comfortable with everything we serve. We test and test, and try and try. We would not serve anything to our guests that we wouldn’t eat ourselves. Our produce comes in fresh, our bread comes in fresh, our eggs are cracked fresh to order, our meat is cooked fresh to order, that makes a huge difference.

What do you see in the future of Boom Breakfast 10 years from now?

Hopefully more and more Booms. We are still a young company, only 13 years old. So there is lots of room for bigger and brighter things.

So, we’d like to raise our mimosas to a great future ahead. We hope to see you at our restaurants, where you’ll enjoy great food, great company and maybe some anecdotes from Jeff about his busboy days

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The Secret to Getting Your Kids to Love Food

kara cheiko — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 20:01:06 +0000

One of the best things we hear from our guests is that whenever they ask their kids where they want to go eat, they all yell ‘BOOM!’. There’s no tougher food critic in the world than a child. Children pick and choose their favourites very carefully and, when they do, there’s no going back. We’ve always tried to keep that in mind. In fact, certain items on our Kids menu are inspired by our little guests. The Alice in Wonderland for instance, was named after a little girl, who’s been coming to our restaurant since before she was even born (her mom was pregnant with her). Still, restaurants have it a little easier than all you parents out there. We’ve witnessed a few epic battles in the home front as parents struggle through 2 hour long meals trying to get their kid to eat just one more bite of the veggies.

Luckily, the kids love us. Whether they try our Mini Pancakes, Clucky Cheese Omelette or our delicious French Toast, they happily gobble it all up and even consider seconds. Parents often tell us that they wish their kids would eat like that all the time, so we thought of handing out a few tips on how to get kids to love food.

1. Let Them Be Involved
Whether it is choosing their meal on the menu or helping you make the dish at home, kids love having some sort of control over what they eat. If they’re a part of the process, they’re more likely to like the end product.

2. Make It Fun
Always be creative at the dinner table and allow them to be the same. Greens don’t have to be boring old greens. Broccoli can be “mini trees” and carrots can be Witch Fingers. We like to think of our extra large eggs as “dinosaur eggs” Just make sure that they only let their imagination run, and don’t actually run along with it. Keep them focused on eating, but make it fun. Anything “mini” is always a hit. Another great way to make eating fun is to make a picture on the plate; maybe a flower or funny faces.

3. Treat Them
Forbidding all things sugary all the time will only make them more coveted in their minds. Treat them to pancakes, waffles and milkshakes every now and then. Just top them up with a load of fruit to give them plenty to vitamins and antioxidants too.

4. Bargain Hard
The golden rule is that they can have more of what they want, if they have a little of what they don’t. Sneak in the veggies, eggs and milk this way.

5. Be a Role Model
Eat the things you want your kids to eat and appear to enjoy them thoroughly. They want to be just like you at the end of the day. They’ll watch and mimic you, eating what you eat. If you eat junk food and force them to have healthy meals, they’ll call you out on your hypocrisy right away. It’s best not to give them the opportunity to do that.

6. Lure Them In
Want your kids to try something new? Lure them in with something they already like and tack on the new food item. For instance, dip carrots with ranch dressing or broccoli with cheese sauce and have them try a bite.

7. Keep Your Cool
The more you tell your kids to finish their veggies, the more they’ll resist. They don’t like being told what to do! It’s in their nature to rebel! Find different ways to get through to them without sounding bossy or irritated. Forcing them to eat can leave them with a bad impression of mealtimes in general.

If all else fails, bring them to BOOM and give them a go at our Kidz360 menu. Our little fans say that we’ve got the best breakfast in Toronto!

On a side note: we are also involved with Kidz360, do check them out.

Kids360 is a one of a kind Fitness & Teambuilding Centre in Toronto, designed especially for kids! From the physiological health benefits to the important social skills they develop, playing is what kids are meant to do.

www.kidz360.ca

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5 Lessons From Tony Cappellano About Running a Business

kara cheiko — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 21:46:00 +0000

Running your own business is no easy task. Ask any budding entrepreneur about it and they’ll say the same. But for the ones who make it and for the ones who are truly passionate about it, there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing something you’ve dreamed of come to life and become a success. Tony Cappellano, our captain and fearless leader, knows exactly how that feels. He was born with the entrepreneurial spirit running through his veins as his mother had also started her own fashion and linen business all while raising seven children and speaking little English. But with her smarts and the help of her children, she was able to make it an experience that was never forgotten – and that’s where Tony’s journey began. He helped his mother in various aspects of the business from communication to accounting. His love for business and marketing grew throughout his education. In his late teens, Tony partnered with a few friends to open a cafe called Sweet Dreams in Toronto’s Little Italy which operated for 12 years. This is where his love for food and his yearning to be his own boss came to light. After various jobs and business ventures, Tony finally decided to open the first Boom Breakfast restaurant in 2003. With the support of Tony’s family, Boom Breakfast grew to three restaurants in Toronto in just four years, adding a fourth in 2012 in Vaughan. Boom Breakfast & Co. is now ready to franchise as per plan!

Throughout this 37 year old entrepreneurial journey, Tony has picked up invaluable life lessons about how to start and run a restaurant. We picked his brain to share a few nuggets of wisdom.

1. People, People, People

They often say that the most important thing to consider when running restaurant is ‘location, location, location’; however, in Tony’s experience it has been all about the people. The job of a restaurant owner is to make sure that the guests are happy, that the relationships with vendors are mutually beneficial, and that the staff is well-trained, passionate and hospitable. It’s the people, not the place, that makes guests come back again and again.

2. Have a vision for your restaurant

Boom Breakfast could have opened in 1997 when Tony first began to think about the “Boom” concept, but the timing was not right. He had to think about what he needed to do, put in the time to do the research, form a vision and test its practicality before investing his heart and soul into it. By not jumping into anything in haste, he made sure that when Boom Breakfast finally hit the runway, it took off without looking back.

3. Inspire yourself constantly

Tony believes that one should always keep up with the industry and learn from the good work people are doing out there. In the early days, he spent much of his time in Starbucks, soaking in the atmosphere and figuring out how he could incorporate a warm and cozy atmosphere into a modern breakfast concept. He wanted to improve on the success stories of other restaurants. He still continues to read, watch and inspire himself, improving the Boom brand as time goes on.

4. Focus on solutions

Running a restaurant brings new challenges every day, but Tony believes in focusing on solutions. He is constantly solving issues as they come his way and encourages his staff to do the same. This creates a positive vibe amongst the team members and allows Tony to lead, thus, making room for success.

5. Listen well

Tony makes a very important observation. We have two ears and one mouth. If we were intended to talk more than we listen, it would be the other way around. He believes that a good business owner listens to his staff and his customers, and anticipates their needs based on his listening skills. The same goes for the staff. When people come in, servers must listen, watch and understand what mood the customer is in. Do they want to talk? Do they want to be left alone? Will they want recommendations? It’s all a part of listening and understanding the people that come through Boom’s doors. It’s called Hospitality.

These are some of the reasons why our fans call us the best breakfast restaurant in Toronto and the reason why we love where we work. There are a ton more business insights where that came from, but we’ll leave it here for now.

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Merry Morning Gift Giveaway

kara cheiko — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 16:00:31 +0000

It’s that time of the year again when we all indulge in a little merry making, a lot of sweet treats and some good old fashioned gift-giving. There’s something magical about the holiday season: it forces us all to be gentler, kinder and more open to the good things life has to offer. It’s the season of joy and a reason to smile.

Smiles, now that’s something we like to dish out the most. You’d think that a breakfast and lunch restaurant is all about the food and the ambiance, but it’s not. It’s all about making our customers smile. Sure we do it through our delicious food and great service, but the goal is always to coax a smile, even from the most sleep-deprived caffeine monsters out there.

So in order to spread some smiles, we embarked on our second year of the Merry Morning Gift Giveaway. The Giveaway is a new tradition we began last year, where we don our Santa hats, conjure our holiday spirit and give away fun and exciting gifts with every meal served on December 15th. The goal is to surprise and delight our guests for sharing their morning with us and, of course, to watch their faces light up like a holiday tree!

While last year was a great first go at the event, this year was bigger and better! Our wonderful vendors pitched in and gave away gifts like Coffee, Tickets to the Ripley’s Aquarium, gift baskets, waffle makers and much more. We also had special Boom Tote bags to stuff the presents in! We gave away 400 gifts, including coupons for free breakfasts here at Boom. All in all, we successfully brought out even bigger smiles than usual from all our customers throughout the day. A huge thank you goes out to Ann Ross of Flanagan Food service for all of her help and support leading up to our big day.

Our Boom paparazzi were stationed in each of our restaurants, taking pictures and boosting the cheer-factor amongst the staff and guests. We got some great selfies and even some camera-shy model shots for our Facebook page.

To make the event go beyond just this one day, we also have a promotion going throughout December, which will require guests to check-in on Facebook for a chance to win one of our eight grand prizes. All in all, it was a great kick-off to the holidays. We had the support of our vendors, the enthusiasm of our staff and the love of our customers all in one go and there’s no better gift for us than that. We hope everyone had as much fun as we did, and if all goes as planned, we’ll do it again next year!

Special thanks to:
The Motion Room, Coca Cola, Derlea Foods, ED Foods/Luda, Gordon Food Service, Horton Spices, JL International, McCain Foods, Nanuk, Olymel, Reunion Island, Waffle World, Burnbrae Farms, Lynch Foods, Primo Foods, Unilever, David Roberts, Alaska Foods, Magnum Food Brokers, Tatangelos Produce, Mr. Dairy, A. Guinness & Company, Flanagan Food Service & Firefly Creative Inc.

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