Has Word of Mouth really sold over two million eggs? We do the math.

Word of Mouth's downtown Sarasota location.

If you’ve been to Word of Mouth lately, you may have noticed a banner proudly claiming that the restaurants have sold over two million eggs. Even for a popular breakfast destination, that seems like a very high number, especially considering the restaurant didn’t get its start until the new millennium. The original restaurant opened in Gulf Gate in 2000. Under Jeremy Adams’ ownership, it expanded to Cattlemen Road in 2006 and downtown Sarasota in 2008.

When we saw Word of Mouth’s boast, we did some quick math. If you add up each location’s time in business, they’ve collectively been serving the community for about 16 years. To get to two million eggs, each location must have sold no less than 342 a day, every single day. That’s basically 116 omelets per store, in just one day’s business hours. Seems like a lot, right?

We asked Adams to explain the math.

What we forgot to account for was the muffins, scones, and quiches and other goods baked from scratch daily. Each Word of Mouth serves 400 people on a good day, and it’s easy to imagine how they could average well over one egg sold per customer. Turns out the actual number of eggs the restaurant goes through is closer to 514 eggs a day.

Adams arrived at this number after Simon Kirby, owner of Simon’s Coffee House and a good friend, proposed that the two restaurateurs combine forces and raise their own chickens. They started to look into it and quickly figured out that the savings couldn’t justify the hassle.

Nonetheless, Word of Mouth did get a pretty impressive claim to fame out of it.