Quite Early One Morning

By Alexander L. Taylor III

A breakfast brigade is wheeling and dealing over eggs Benedict

For this year's executive, a coveted symbol of upward mobility is not the pocket pager or even the in-car telephone but a high-visibility confab over coffee and croissants. The business breakfast has arrived. Whether it is an attempt to keep ahead of the competition, catch up with the Japanese or just get away from the office telephone, more and more corporate chieftains are gathering at ordinarily uncivilized hours like 7:30 a.m. to make deals.

In Los Angeles, movie studio heads pass film scripts along with English muffins at the Bel Air Hotel and the Polo Lounge. Executives from Pillsbury and Control Data help keep the wood-paneled, chandeliered rooms of the Minneapolis Club filled to near capacity on weekday mornings. At New York City's Regency Hotel, Publisher Rupert Murdoch, Labor Lawyer Theodore Kheel and Investment Banker Felix Rohatyn frequently occupy adjacent tables. Bob Tisch, chairman of Loews Hotels, which owns the Regency, and a habitual breakfaster, says, "The transactions are very gentlemanlike, but there is big money negotiated here."

For breakfast clubbers like Movie Producer Alan Silverman, a meal of scrambled eggs, toast and coffee at the Polo Lounge is also a chance to catch up on industry gossip. Others say the meal adds an important new extension to the workday. Says Seagram Vice President Mary Cunningham, who had breakfast with Bendix Chairman William Agee at the Helmsley Palace in New York shortly before they announced their engagement: "You are always looking for social situations where you can do business, and breakfast increases those times."

Wherever they eat, executives claim that the business breakfast is more productive than a long, and often liquid, lunch. While traditional brunch beverages like Bloody Marys and screwdrivers are rare, the corporate breakfast need not be spartan. Some executives prefer such healthy dishes as wheat germ and yogurt, but others indulge in eggs Benedict or Viennese crepes. In Minneapolis kippered herring and whitefish are favorites.

Early in the morning, executives are all business. Chitchat is kept to a minimum, and participants go right to work. Notes Rob Cornell, marketing director of Chicago's Ritz-Carlton hotel, where breakfast meetings have doubled in the past few years: "People are fresher in the morning."

Waiters are usually instructed to clear dishes promptly so that adding machines and balance sheets can be displayed across the damask. With office appointments looming, discussions move briskly to their conclusion. Says Ed Meyer, chairman of Grey Advertising: "Breakfast is self-limiting; it's shorter, quicker and more efficient." Meyer likes to be finished eating and off to his office by 9:15 a.m.

Many executives are convinced that early-morning meetings save time and money. By substituting a brief break fast for a lengthy lunch, they can get more work done. Out-of-town trips can be shortened by beginning the working day at 7 a.m. Says John Schulman, a Los Angeles attorney: "A breakfast meeting indicates a degree of seriousness in what you're doing because to start working at 7:30 or 8 a.m. shows you're really interested."

Some businessmen have become so enamored of the breakfast meeting that they try to squeeze two into one morning. Brooks Byers, a San Francisco venture capitalist, remembers leaving a restaurant at 8:30 a.m. after an hourlong session with a visiting executive, only to see the man turn around and head back into the dining room for another meeting at 8:45 a.m.

Others complain, however, that when hours are added to the working day, Parkinson's Law goes into effect: the businessman's tasks expand to fill the available time. ABC Vice President Robert Bookman would much rather spend his prework hours on the squash court.

Says he: "That's how I'm able to cope with the rest of the day."

Big-city hotels are making changes in order to accommodate the new business. At Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the Holiday Inn has added fresh-baked pastries and vegetable quiche to its menu. Peter Fyvie, a director at the Helmsley Palace, says that breakfast business has shot up 50% since the hotel opened 19 months ago. He now reads business magazines so that he can more quickly recognize important members of the breakfast brigade. The Helmsley also has convenient wall plugs so that telephones can be brought to diners' tables.

Whatever the appeals of the business breakfast, saving money is not one of them. Some Midwestern executives claim that they can get away from the table for about $4, but that will not buy much more than a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in New York. At the Helmsley, where one of the most popular entrees is eggs Benedict made with crabmeat instead of Canadian bacon, breakfast for two can cost as much as $40. --By Alexander L.Taylor III

Reported by Cheryl Crooks/Los Angeles and Sue Raffety/New York

With reporting by Cheryl Crooks/Los Angeles, Sue Raffety/New York

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