Breakthrough Restaurant Chain, Cereality® Cereal Bar & Café, Receives Annual Award from Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, Authors of "The Exper

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September 14, 2006 // Franchising.com // BALTIMORE, — Cereality® Cereal Bar & Café won the 2006 "Experience Stager of the Year" award, presented annually to the one company that best exemplifies the principles of Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore's best-selling book "The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage."

The EXPY, as the award is commonly known, was presented to Cereality at Oriole Park in Camden Yards – using a "Letterman-esque" Top Ten countdown of outstanding experiences – during the 9th annual Strategic Horizons thinkAbout event. The No. 1 experience wins the EXPY. Previous EXPY winners include iconic brands such as LEGO and breakthrough concepts American Girl Place and Geek Squad.

This year's event gave attendees an in-depth look at the principles and practices of the Experience Economy during a "Walk-the-Talk" tour through the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, site of the conference. At thinkAbout, an ensemble of guest presenters interact with participants, encouraging them to turn their experiences into ideas for their businesses. The gathering draws a wide-ranging audience, including frontline staff and C-suite executives, chief executive officers and chief experience officers, as well as a mix of companies.

"We chose Cereality as our 'Experience Stager of the Year' because David and Rick have not only invented a whole new category in the greater restaurant industry, but also because they've implemented their promise of 'Always Saturday Morning' to do it so well," noted Joe Pine. "The idea is so simple, based on an experience almost everyone has had growing up – I know I did, and still do – and so full of promise for growth in myriad ways."

"Cereality has taken a basic morning routine of eating breakfast cereal and created a new-to-the-world cereal-eating experience that exemplifies the very best of what we preach," added Jim Gilmore. "David and Rick acted on an opportunity so obvious nobody saw it. As more people experience the concept, they'll surely have many people asking themselves, 'Why didn't we think of that?' What I love about Cereality is how the offering takes a basic American home ritual—cozying up to a box of your favorite brand of cereal—and turns it into a memorable away-from-home event."

Cereality co-founders David Roth and Rick Bacher were in attendance to accept the award. "'The Experience Economy' was one of the books we studied when we were thinking about a way to take a commodity like cereal and make it into an experience," said Roth. "With our 'all cereal, all days, all ways'™ concept, we empower our customers and allow them to use their creativity to come up with the perfect cereal combination. We train our 'Cereologists'™ to believe that while they are serving cereal, they are selling Saturday morning (we've even trademarked the phrase). We also believe that in order to succeed at this business, everyone in the organization must bring who they are to what they do."

About Strategic Horizons LLP

Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, authors of business best-seller "The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage," founded Aurora, Ohio-based Strategic Horizons LLP, in 1996. Strategic Horizons is a thinking studio dedicated to helping companies conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. For more information, visit www.StrategicHorizons.com, call 330-405-2886, or e-mail thinkAbout@StrategicHorizons.com.

About Cereality
Cereality is the first restaurant business to ever break the mold of traditional foodservice to bring a unique, highly personal, healthy eating experience to the consumer, entirely focused around brand-name cereals. One of the most compelling aspects of Cereality is that the menu offerings are already famous, with favorite brands from Quaker Oats, Kellogg's, General Mills, Post, and Nature's Path. Customers can choose from more than 30 different cereal varieties, over 40 different toppings, a variety of milks (including soy and lactose-free) and choices of hot and cold beverages. The menu also features a wide range of popular signature Cereality blends of cereals, toppings, and mix-ins. These include many delicious made-to-order varieties of Quaker Oatmeal®.

Yet, these cereals aren't served just in bowls. They're also used in proprietary cereal bars and other homemade bakery items, snack mixes, granolas, parfaits, and smoothies. The unique residential, home kitchen atmosphere is punctuated by familiar brand-name cereal boxes displayed in custom-built kitchen cabinets and pajama-clad Cereologists™ prepare orders to customers' specifications. For photos of Cereality's various locations or for more information, go to www.cereality.com.