The City Egg is trying to crack open Bowling Green as a new market.

“The idea behind City Egg is that not everyone can do full service for breakfast,” owner Brandon Buerk said. “A lot of people want breakfast, but the problem with not sitting down for a full-service, made-to-order breakfast, the other option is fast food joints. That’s garbage.

“The idea, for us, is a fast casual version of our Scramblers restaurants,” Buerk said. “It’s not fast food. It’s not full service. It’s food made to order, and fresh. It’s as fresh as it can get. It will have the quality and taste of our Scramblers restaurants, but the speed and convenience of a fast food place.”

This will be Buerk’s third in the chain of new breakfast places.

Downtown Bowling Green was an easy choice for him.

“I fell in love with the location, city and people. It was the perfect mix,” Buerk said.

When the opportunity opened to get the location on South Main Street, Buerk jumped on it.

The demographics were exactly the mix he was looking for, he said.

“Everybody eats,” he said, adding that there are high school kids, white collar and blue collar adults, college students and baby boomers.

The spot had been the home of several restaurants, so it made for an easier conversion. The downside is that, at 1,500 square feet, every inch counts.

The fast casual market fits between a sit-down restaurant and fast food, he said.

Buerk grew up in the restaurant industry. His father, Phil, and brother, Shain, started the Scramblers restaurants in 1989. Now there are 30 of those locations and, with the addition of the Bowling Green location, three City Egg locations.

They started the businesses in Toledo and still have their headquarters in the city. In addition to Buerk, his brother, Shain, joined with a partner, Tim Trautman, to make the City Egg.

The Scramblers are your standard restaurant, with a focus on quality ingredients. Buerk took the quality concept and combined it with ordering kiosks for speed and customer cost savings, to develop City Egg. Orders are made at a wall-mounted computer tablet, but food is cooked to order, in the center of the restaurant.

As the name suggests, the menu is mostly eggs. There are some sandwich options for a more typical lunch.

“It’s just breakfast, brunch and lunch. We have a fresh juice bar, which is handcrafted juices, as well as coffees, cappuccinos, espressos, those sorts of things,” Buerk said. “Our menu is basically a paired down Scramblers’ menu. So it’s omelettes, skillets, French toast and pancakes.”

Pre-cracked and whipped eggs, shipped in a large plastic bladder, are the standard practice for most restaurants, but not for City Egg.

“Our eggs are cracked by hand, exactly as if you bought them from the farm,” Buerk said of their fresh menu, with recipes made at and for his family’s restaurants.

Hours will be 6:30 a.m.-3 p.m., every day, at 121 S. Main St. To get a preview, Buerk recommends jumping on their website www.cityeggrestaurants.com.

The City Egg plans to be open in late March, with a Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting in April.