If you encountered Drip Collective anytime between July 2024 to March 2025, chances are you witnessed out-the-door lines. The crowds coincided with the Chubby Boys pop-up, which had a wildly popular run at the West Loop cafe thanks to a much-loved breakfast sandwich.
Chubby Boys seemingly struck gold with the sandwich, crafted with a sizzling steamed egg patty and bacon jam. “It took about three months to perfect the steamed egg, finding the right balance of heat, steam time, and ingredients,” Oscar Zargoza says. The popularity of the sandwich was all the more surprising because Chubby Boys wasn’t even a breakfast pop-up in the first place. Founded in 2021 by Zaragoza and Cesar Ordaz, Chubby Boys specializes in burgers. But lightning struck with the invention of the Chubby Boys breakfast sandwich. “Most places use standard breakfast proteins, but we wanted to do something different. The bacon jam was originally created for our signature smash burger, but when we added it to the breakfast sandwich, it became something truly special.”
Customers lined up around the corner for the Chubby Boys breakfast sandwich during a residency at Side Practice. Kristen Mendiola/Chubby Boys
Chubby Boys isn’t alone. The pop-up is part of a full-fledged Chicago breakfast bonanza, fueled by a flurry of new bakeries and high-profile bagel joints and the longtail leadership of trend-setters like two-Michelin-starred Kasama, where diners still wait in hour-long lines every weekend for a taste of its now-iconic Filipino breakfast sandwich. Now, a new wave is leading the charge: These days, if you want to find the best breakfast in the city, you’ll have to catch it at a pop-up. Vagabond businesses like Chubby Boys (which launched a residency at Spilt Milk in March) and Morning Jay’s are finding success by focusing on the most important meal of the day.
Chubby Boy’s breakfast sandwich was a collaborative innovation. Drip Collective’s owners initially asked Zargoza and Ordaz to develop a breakfast item for a one-time event. However, “after they tried the dishes we planned for that pop-up, they asked if we’d be open to doing a longer residency at their location,” Zargoza says.
Satisfied customers flooded social media with raves that helped Chubby Boys gain a loyal following. The eight-month residency proved that the hype surrounding a pop-up can be just as influential — and in some cases, even more so — in mobilizing people to visit than the food itself. “Drip Collective played a huge role in the growth of Chubby Boys,” Zaragoza says. “It gave us a space to really define who we are, both from a branding and culinary standpoint. It also challenged us to see how well we could handle pressure and adapt to unexpected situations.”
“I think there’s a need for better breakfast right now.”
And the breakfast buzz also spilled over to Drip Collective. “Chubby Boys had a big influence on Drip’s business,” says Francis Almeda, Drip Collective’s co-owner. “Their menu was on point and exactly what our customers wanted, and people missed them (including myself and the staff),” after the residency ended, Almeda adds.
For Nate Crawford and Justen Lambar, co-founders of breakfast pop-up series Morning Jay’s, virality is also embedded in their success story. “Social media has played a huge role,” says Lambar. “But if our food wasn’t good, people wouldn’t want to come back.”
And they sure do come back. Since launching Morning Jay’s in mid-2024, the business has gone from an at-home pop-up to a well-known brand with more than 12,000 Instagram followers. “We asked ourselves, ‘How do we do this in a non-traditional way?’” Lambar says. “We didn’t want to open a brick-and-mortar, so we thought that because we have friends over all the time to test our recipes, why don’t we just invite people that we know online who we haven’t met in person yet?”
The project took off. Morning Jay’s typically sells out its at-home pop-ups, dubbed cozy cafes, before they’re even announced to the public. Crawford and Lambar’s Substack subscribers get early access to tickets, as well as new menu previews and behind-the-scenes content.
“Breakfast food lends itself to a lot of innovation,” Lambar says. “Right now, it’s stuck in this era of just adding egg to a dish and calling it breakfast. I think there’s a need for better breakfast right now.”
Oftentimes, a restaurant is the goal for fledgling pop-ups, but that’s not necessarily the case for Morning Jay’s. “We don’t write off the idea of being a brick and mortar,” says Lambar. However, by nature, the Morning Jay’s identity as an online-born, at-home, and nomadic pop-up, at a certain point, is diametrically opposed to a permanent restaurant space. A Morning Jay’s experience starts well before you bite into one of the ube pancakes or loaded tater tots. For most, it starts with an Instagram follow.
Morning Jay’s is basically a private breakfast party. Morning Jay’s
Morning Jay’s offers early access to pop-up tickets through its Substack. Morning Jay’s
“We’re making inferences to see how it could become a full-time thing,” Lambar says. “There’s a lot of potential for us right now, especially with our following, but we don’t want this to ever feel like a job. We still want this to be a passion project.”
The popularity of these pop-ups signals diners’ increasing desire for a comfortable, less buttoned-up experience — a trend that has reached far beyond the pop-up space. Industry heavyweights are getting in on the action with expanded breakfast menus, coffee-driven beverage programs and investments in daytime cafe concepts.
Metric Coffee’s new all-day cafe, Milli, made a splashy debut in September, Top Chef alum Joe Flamm just opened an all-day concept in the West Loop early next year, and Lincoln Square bakery Del Sur has dominated daytime with its Filipino-influenced pastries.
“Chicago’s pop-up space is very inclusive,” Lambar says. “It’s made up of people who love serving food and building community, and who don’t see other pop-ups as competition but instead as collaborators and people who are helping each other out.”
Case in point: Chubby Boys and Morning Jay’s both called out the other as their favorite Chicago pop-up, in addition to Alexis Rice’s virtual restaurant Funeral Potatoes at Moonflower and Jam’s Market & Deli (formerly Zelda’s Sandwich Joint), which recently hosted breakfast pop-ups at Reprise Coffee Roasters.
“Pop-ups are great because they circumnavigate a lot of the bureaucratic bullcrap and pitfalls of the restaurant industry,” Lambar adds. “It’s not only fun to participate in, but it’s also a way of questioning the current power structure of dining.”