Having experienced the sublime marriage of glazed donut and beef that is the Krispy Kreme burger, I approach Morning Rolls—a Raleigh restaurant with a succinct all-day menu of cinnamon rolls and sandwiches—with one burning question: “Can I get uhhh burger on a cinnamon roll?”
I set off on a rainy Thursday afternoon to find out.
Morning Rolls occupies a small rectangular building in Quail Corners Shopping Center. While the customer ahead of me orders at the counter, I take in the sparse interior: black-and-white tiled floor, fluorescent lights, two tables, and several barstools beneath a ledge at the window. The only artwork consists of framed children’s drawings, including a squiggly blob titled SCOTLAND—a nod, perhaps, to the Scottish origins of morning rolls.
The menu board lists breakfast sandwiches with various combinations of egg, cheese, and meats (including a vegan sausage option), ranging from $6 to $8, lunch sandwiches including chicken salad and BLT in the same price range, and burgers in wagyu, brisket, black bean, and plant-based varieties, topping out around $10. Everything comes on large Hawaiian bread rolls. There are also tater tots for $1.50 and two varieties of cinnamon rolls—classic for $4.25 and seasonal peach brown sugar for $5.
Notably absent from the menu are cinnamon roll sandwiches. No problem; I’ll just ask.
But just as my eyes fall on the glass-doored case on the counter, the cashier delivers crushing news to the person in front of me. They’re out of cinnamon rolls.
Maybe I should’ve arrived earlier? Morning Rolls is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., and it’s currently 1:15. When it’s my turn at the register, I ask the cashier what time the restaurant usually sells out.
“Never,” she says. “This never happens.”
The dreary forecast, she explains, led them to make a smaller batch. They hadn’t anticipated so many customers would stop by in the rain.
Well then. I order the wagyu burger as it comes, with an egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion. At $9.75, wagyu has never been more accessible. I’ve even got enough left in my budget to get a side of tots. Wagyu and a side for under fifteen bucks! That’s a Lunch Money victory by any measure. I should be happy with this.
But I came here for chaos, and now my brain won’t let it go. When the cashier asks how I’d like the egg cooked, opportunity strikes. I ask what most people order.
“Definitely fried,” she says.
“I’ll do scrambled then.”
She offers cheese options. I pick pepper jack. Mayo or chipotle mayo? Chipotle, obviously. With a 20 percent tip, my total comes to $14.47.
The tots come in a paper bag. They’re so hot and flaky inside that if you told me the interior was fish, I would believe you. I inhale all ten of them before even opening the clamshell containing the burger.
The burger looks promising. But when I take a bite, all I can taste is scrambled egg. It’s like dipping crackers in salsa—you’d think it wouldn’t be that different from the standard setup, but it is.
I apply several packets of ketchup and mustard, trying to salvage the situation.
No dice. I ask for a water cup. They don’t have any. I buy a bottle, pushing my total to $16.47.
Now I’m disappointed and over budget. And I did this to myself. In an unprecedented move for this column, I decide to return for a second trip.
Two days later, I’m driving back to Morning Rolls with a new strategy.
I’ve realized that buying a burger and a cinnamon roll separately would exceed my budget, and asking the restaurant to swap a burger bun for a cinnamon roll at no additional cost seems presumptuous. So instead, I’ll try ordering a breakfast sandwich—$3 cheaper than the burger—on a cinnamon roll, and if they won’t assemble it, at least I can afford both items separately and do it myself.
I explain the plan to my boyfriend, who I’ve brought along for moral support.
“Maybe they’ll make it a new menu item and call it ‘The Lena,’” he says.
When we get there, I see the case of cinnamon rolls is full. There’s also a different cashier than last time.
I order a breakfast sandwich with sausage, a fried egg, cheddar, and LTO. Then I say a prayer and ask the cashier if she can put it on a cinnamon roll.
“Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry, no.”
“Okay, that’s fine!” I say quickly.
She suggests I order the items a la carte.
“What you do with them after is none of my business,” she says.
I think that’s as close to a blessing as I’m gonna get. Total with tip: $14.16.
When my order is ready, I grab a plastic knife from the condiment station and get to work. The top of the roll has a crackly glaze. The bottom has the kind of even golden-brown bake that makes you instinctively rap it with a knuckle. The serrated edge pulls through the soft roll easily.
Inside, the spiral isn’t doughy but somehow still tender and chewy, almost like mochi.
After bisecting the roll horizontally, I begin construction: sausage patty first (thin, well-seasoned, topped with melty cheddar); then the fried egg, which I doctor with salt and pepper packets; and finally lettuce, tomato, onion.
The whole thing resists being eaten like a conventional sandwich, as the cinnamon roll keeps wanting to break off in boomerang-shaped pieces. But flavor-wise, it works. The raw onion cuts through both the icing and the sausage fat. The salt, sage, and pepper in the sausage make the cinnamon feel less dessert-y and more like an actual grown-up spice. The jammy yolk bridges sweet and savory in its own right.
You could eat them separately and still get a solid meal. But if all this sounds like something you’d be into, welcome to the underground movement of cinnamon roll sandwich truthers. We meet never. Just do it yourself.
Follow Staff Writer Lena Geller on Bluesky or email [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].