Want an Egg McMuffin for lunch? If a pilot program being tested at McDonald’s works out, that may become an option. WSJ’s Ilan Brat explains on MoneyBeat. Photo: Getty 
 
 McDonald’s Corp. soon will begin testing sales of McMuffins, Hash Browns and Hotcakes throughout the day, a sign of new Chief Executive Steve Easterbrook’s willingness to experiment with a range of measures to reinvigorate flagging sales. 
 
 The tests, which start in April at some McDonald’s outlets in the San Diego area, will push sales of certain breakfast items past the start of lunch service, which is generally around 11 a.m. The move doesn’t guarantee that the company would expand the project nationwide, a spokeswoman... 

 Photo illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 
 
 The past two years were not McDonald’s finest. Sales declined; promotions fell flat; ugly labor disputes drew public ire. In January, Don Thompson stepped down as the company’s chief executive, and his replacement, Steve Easterbrook, was handed the monumental task of trying to turn the struggling chain around. Easterbrook finally might be onto a solution—in bacon, egg, and cheese form. 
 
 On Monday, McDonald’s said it will begin testing daylong breakfast—that means the Egg McMuffin, hash browns, and various other items—at certain restaurants near San Diego. Should the initial tests go well, the menu switch could end up being what McDonald’s desperately needs to get its business back on track. That’s because, by and large, people love McDonald’s breakfast. Matt Yglesias once wrote in Slate of the Sausage McMuffin With Egg: “Asking whether McDonald's can make a better breakfast sandwich than the Sausage McMuffin With Egg is a bit like asking whether God could make an object so massive that he couldn't move it.” Business Insider’s Sam Ro has declared a photo of an Egg McMuffin so “perfect” that it inspired him and two colleagues to order McDonald’s on Seamless. 
 
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 In short, McDonald’s breakfast has somehow escaped the widespread consumer skepticism weighing down sales of most other items on the menu. It’s hard to know exactly why this is. Perhaps it’s because McDonald’s has been more successful at marketing its breakfast as fresh—as Thompson said last April, “we actually crack eggs.” Or maybe it’s because with breakfast, it’s easier to believe that marketing. As anyone who’s ever had an Egg McMuffin knows, it looks and tastes authentic in a way that the standard McDonald’s burger just doesn’t. Or maybe it’s simply that McDonald’s breakfast really does taste pretty good. 
 
 “Arguably, the two most craveable items on the McDonald’s menu are its French fries and breakfast items such as the various McMuffin permutations and the utterly delicious McGriddles,” Mark Kalinowski, an analyst at Janney Capital Markets, wrote in a Monday note to clients that announced the news of McDonald’s planned breakfast test. “Having those breakfast items available to sell all day would also serve as a reminder to customers (and the media ... and Wall Street ...) that McDonald’s does indeed have craveable food to sell.” 
 
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 Whatever the reason, breakfast has remained a bright spot for the chain even as other sales have flailed. Breakfast makes up an estimated 25 percent of McDonald’s sales, which in 2014 would have translated to some $4.5 billion at company-operated restaurants. In 2012, food and restaurant research firm Technomic estimated the U.S. market for fast-food breakfast at $31.7 billion. Since then, breakfast sales have continued to grow, but competition has, too. 
 
 
 
 Considering how popular and successful McDonald’s breakfast is, it might seem odd that the company has historically offered it only until 10:30 a.m. The company says that’s because the grills in its kitchens aren’t big enough to accommodate both breakfast and lunch cooking. “Their equipment has been designed for efficiency,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic. “So you’re looking at taking a very efficient and space-confined kitchen, and looking at 14,000 stores, and how you’re going to increase the griddle space for breakfast and burgers. It’s a major challenge.” 

 McDonald’s Corp. will experiment with serving breakfast all day at some San Diego-area locations as Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook seeks to pull the restaurant chain out of a U.S. sales slump. 
 
 The test, slated to begin next month, will keep hash browns, Egg McMuffins and other sandwiches on the menu beyond the standard breakfast hours, Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company, said in an e-mailed statement. 
 
 McDonald’s is the fast-food breakfast leader, and the morning menu accounts for about 25 percent of the company’s business. As more Americans eat breakfast away from home, competitors such as Taco Bell and Starbucks have tried to take market share from McDonald’s with expanded offerings. Breakfast foods are some of the most popular items on McDonald’s menu, so the all-day test makes sense, Mark Kalinowski, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, said in a research note. 
 
 “Arguably, the two most craveable items on the McDonald’s menu are its french fries and breakfast items such as various McMuffin permutations and the utterly delicious McGriddles,” said Kalinowski, who’s based in New York. “Having those breakfast items available to sell all day would also serve as a reminder to customers (and the media and Wall Street) that McDonald’s does indeed have craveable food to sell.” 
 
 The shares rose 0.9 percent to $97.88 at the close in New York. McDonald’s has climbed 4.5 percent this year. 
 
 Customers have long called for McDonald’s to serve breakfast all day, but, as Kalinowski points out, the company has said its kitchen grills aren’t big enough to cook its entire menu at the same time. 
 
 McDonald’s didn’t specify how many restaurants would participate in the breakfast test. 
 
 “We look forward to learning from this test, and it’s premature to speculate on any outcomes,” McComb said.
– Forget kale burgers. McDonald's latest strategy to turn around sagging sales is giving customers something they've apparently been long clamoring for: breakfast for lunch or dinner. The company says it's going to try out serving McMuffins, hash browns, and so on throughout the day at some outlets in San Diego starting in April, the Wall Street Journal reports, although the company says it's "premature to speculate on any outcomes." What the analysts think: Some see it as a winner: "Arguably, the two most craveable items on the McDonald's menu are its french fries and breakfast items such as various McMuffin permutations and the utterly delicious McGriddles," analyst Mark Kalinowski says in a research note, per Bloomberg. "Having those breakfast items available to sell all day would also serve as a reminder to customers (and the media and Wall Street) that McDonald's does indeed have craveable food to sell." But before McDonald's can think about rolling out all-day breakfast to all of its 14,000 US restaurants, it has to solve the problem of lack of grill space, which it has cited in the past as a reason it couldn't serve breakfast all day, notes Shelly Banjo at Quartz. The sales potential is "undeniable," she writes, but only if the "chain can finally make enough room on its griddles to cook both eggs and burgers, at the same time." The griddle problem is a "major challenge," Technomic exec Darren Tristano tells Slate, but it looks like McDonald's is ready to try to solve it. "They're in a funk right now and for the last two years," he says. "Any move that gives your customers what they want, when they want it ... is a strong and positive move." Whether the breakfast experiment works or not, many see it as a sign of new CEO Steve Easterbrook's willingness to try new things. "I think he has a view that he can accomplish most anything," industry analyst Larry Miller tells the Journal.