Kenneth Rader was hanging out with friends, watching TV and eating cereal when it struck him: Why not create a place where people can hang out with friends, watch TV and eat cereal?

What started as a lark while he was studying at Syracuse University slowly gathered steam in his head until - in a fit of inspiration - he stayed up all night pouring his thoughts onto paper.

He e-mailed the document, known at "The Cereal Project,'' to his twin brother, Josh, and they kicked it around for a few months until it finally emerged as a 19-page business plan.

The idea was brutally simple: a Starbucks-style cafe that offers clients a choice of 35 different kinds of breakfast cereal and 60 different toppings for about $3.25 a bowl.

"You either love it, hate it or just don't get it,'' says Kenneth.

Their childhood friend Michael Glassman loved it and immediately signed on as the third partner.

Whether customers will get it should be apparent next month when the three 24-year-olds throw open the doors to The Cereal Bowl at 1560 South Dixie Hwy.

Located across the street from the University of Miami, the 1,700 square-foot bar will seat about 40.

The friends are betting a combination of strong coffee, soft couches and free wireless access will turn the place into a college hangout. But the store's centerpiece will be a bar where customers can mix and match cereals and top them off with everything from fresh fruit and nuts to M&Ms and Gummy Bears. The menu is rounded out with hot cereals, yogurt desserts and steamed milk drinks.

The Herald will be following the trio over the next 12 months, as they try to turn The Cereal Bowl into a successful business.

According to their calculations, they'll need to make about 250 sales a day - at about $5 a pop - to break even.

But about five weeks from opening day, it's hard to imagine the place abuzz with cereal-slurping students. The cavernous space is still barren; permitting snags have kept the partners from finishing construction and pushed back the grand opening by a month.

The only piece of furniture in the place is a small glass-topped desk, and the three men were huddled around it one recent evening, taking care of some of the thousands of details that need to come together before the doors open.

"This isn't like opening a Dunkin' Donuts franchise,'' said Josh. "We have to build relationships with vendors; we have to go out and decide what we want the store to look like - the furniture, the menu, everything from the bottom up.''

One of the pressing issues this evening is where they are going to store the 25,000 biodegradable cereal bowls on their way from California.

Answering cellphones and shooting out e-mails, the clean-cut partners seem older than their years - as if long-term exposure to lawyers, contractors and city regulators have them channeling middle-aged MBAs.

Growing up together in Kendall, the Raders and Glassman have known each other since they were about 6 years old.

"I've always considered myself an honorary triplet,'' said Glassman.

Even then Kenneth and Josh were showing a knack for enterprise. When they were about 9, the twins designed and built their own version of Animal Kingdom in their playroom - years before Disney inaugurated the park.

"Even today we joke about it and say `Geez, Disney stole his idea,' '' says mother Susan Rader.

After Hurricane Andrew, the boys gathered their friends and collected money to replant neighborhood trees.

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