This emerging restaurant chain is totally focused on brunch

A new restaurant chain is borrowing menu items from its sister chain - but cutting down the menu to only include breakfast and lunch.

Egg N' Joe opened on January 18 in Scottsdale, Arizona, the first of four planned locations in the area, reports Nation's Restaurant News. The restaurant is only open from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The restaurant's menu will look surprisingly familiar to diners who have been to any of the 25 locations of Elmer's. Elmer's Restaurants Inc. is responsible for launching Egg N' Joe, which borrows the best morning dishes from the Portland, Oregon-based chain.

About 80% of the breakfast menu and half of the lunch menu at Egg N' Joe originated at Elmer's, Jerry Scott, president and CEO of Elmer's Restaurants, told Nation's Restaurant News.

Breakfast at Egg N' Joe includes items such as Mountain Lodge Omelets and Elmer's signature German pancakes.

At lunch, diners can order sandwiches, burgers, and salads.

Egg N' Joe, like Elmer's, serves beer, wine, and mimosas for customers who want to partake in a boozy brunch.

Scott told Nation's Restaurant News that the bulk of the company's business at Elmer's is breakfast and lunch. So, when crafting a new concept, he decided to ditch dinner.

Breakfast has been a major focus in the fast-food industry in recent years, from Taco Bell's Waffle Taco to McDonald's all-day breakfast. However, McDonald's move into the breakfast space has hurt business at sit-down family restaurants like Denny's and IHOP that have been serving all-day breakfast for decades.

Egg N' Joe presents a different way to focus on breakfast and brunch. It doesn't serve breakfast all day like McDonald's or IHOP - it can just close up shop when breakfast and lunch are over.

So far, customers seem to be enjoying the brunch-centric concept. The location has three and a half stars on Yelp, with customers especially loving the German pancake.

"Very friendly staff, bright energetic art on the walls, great music on," reads one fairly representative five-star review. "The food is amazing, my co-diner ordered the German pancake and it was beautiful."

Elmer's was founded in 1960, under the original name "Elmer's Colonial Pancake House." Most of the chain's locations are currently in the Pacific Northwest. As a result Egg N' Joe is not just a chance for the company to focus on breakfast and lunch - it also provides the opportunity to open up shop in Arizona for the first time.