(I’m listening to “My Hometown” by Bruce Springsteen)

When the wife and I have a weekday off together, we usually like to do something special. That something special is going out for breakfast as a family. We have a couple of “go to” spots that we enjoy. One of them is called Breakfast Inn.

We love Breakfast Inn for a number of reasons. It’s really kid friendly. Our kids are 3 and 1, so they’re pretty noisy, and they’re a lot like Hansel and Gretel; they leave crumbs and food everywhere. Whenever we go out to eat, we’re always asking servers for brooms and vacuum cleaners; but not at Breakfast Inn. It has concrete floors that clean right up, so we can usually fend for ourselves with a napkin or two. As for our noisy kids? The clanging of the dishes and silverware, the quiet hum of conversations, and the toy train that chugs around overhead, drown them out nicely.  There also isn’t a dress code.  For example; today, Littles wore her Santa robe and slippers and called herself, “Santa.”  Nobody batted an eyelash.  Everyone just rolled with it and called her Santa.  You can wear whatever you want.  Nobody cares.  It’s totally relaxed.  Breakfast Inn is also a bit nostalgic for us.  It’s the first place we got food from after our first daughter was born.  We needed good food, we needed a large amount, and we needed to feel like it was homemade.  Breakfast Inn was our choice.

 

Breakfast Inn is really a throwback to a different era. There isn’t a fancy sign, it hasn’t been updated in a little while, it’s dimly lit, except for the sun beaming into the windows, and you can almost see the cigarette smoke still hanging in the air from  when it was still legal to smoke indoors. It has its regular customers that come in to drink coffee and chew the fat with their friends. The servers have all been there for years. They’re kind, sweet, and chatty older ladies whose social boundaries are from a different era; before society got more uptight.  They’re not afraid to say how cute our kids are or even pat them on the head. It’s like grandma is taking my order. The best thing about them is they greet anyone that looks younger than them with a “Hiya Hon!” or a “How are ya, babe!”  It reminds me of my Aunt Gail. She lives on the East Coast and ran a diner when I was a kid. Whenever I talk to her, she greets me with a, “Hiya Hon! How ya doin?” in her thick New York accent. I absolutely love it. Some things in life I hope never change, and that’s one of them.

It’s also a throwback because nothing is computerized; it’s like we’re in 1985. Our order gets taken in pencil on one of those green note pads. They clip it to that rotating mechanism and the cook promptly spins it around, scans the order, and begins making your breakfast. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m sure the cook says, “Order up!” when food is ready.  A few minutes before we’re done, the server puts our ticket on our table. I bring it up front to pay and they stab it onto a little tiny stake, punch in few numbers on the cash register, and an old school “ding” is heard as the till pops open.  It’s a great little place and it’s about a mile from our house.

The best part about Breakfast Inn, besides the people and the atmosphere, is the food.  It’s everything I would want in a breakfast.  The menu is huge, the portions are huge, and it’s incredibly tasty.  I order the usual.  It’s literally called “The Usual.”

It comes with choice of bacon, sausage, Canadian bacon, or ham, 2 eggs cooked any way you like, a pile of homemade hash brown, and choice of toast or pancakes or biscuits and gravy or tortillas.  I go with sausage patties, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and pancakes.  It’s amazing.  The sausage, eggs, and hash browns are great, but the pancakes are just unreal.  I don’t know what’s in them, but they taste like cake batter that an angel dipped its finger in.  That’s the best description I can give.  The order also shows up within 180 seconds from when you order it.  It’s almost like they can read my mind.  The wife likes the fact that her coffee is never cold.  Our server warmed her up at least 7 times today and of course, coffee is served out of those glass pots with the brown or orange spout.

Today, our 3-year-old got chocolate chip pancakes…I think, for the first time. She might have had them at home before.  Regardless, it’s like her two favorite things flattened into one.  We make pancakes at home and she just devours them; and that’s without the chocolate chips in there.  With them?  Who knows what her reaction would be.  Would she be in total shock?  Would she scream? Would she just spontaneously combust with joy?  Would she run three celebratory laps around the whole restaurant?  Any of those reactions would have been in play.  I had no idea.  Needless to say, it’s safe to say she loved them.

There were so many pancakes, we had to take some home.  She didn’t want to put them in the box.  She literally wanted to carry them in her hands.  Seriously, she didn’t want to let them out of her sight.  We had to reassure her they would be there when we got home, and they were.  They were tucked nicely into the Styrofoam box.  She had them later for dinner.

A couple of fun things happened today at Breakfast Inn.  The first was, the wife and I got to look into the future.  Sitting at the table next to us was a couple with two girls, ages 5 and 7; roughly the same distance apart as our two little ladies.  We chatted with them, and we could see a familiar look in their eye when they looked at our girls.  It was almost like a, “Yep, we’ve been there and done that before,” type of look.  Only, we couldn’t tell if it was endearing, or if they were glad to be done with that phase.  It didn’t matter.  We just watched as their girls ordered and we talked about how that will be us in 4 short years.  When that happens, I’m sure we’ll wonder where the time went, which is all the more reason to enjoy this phase now.

The second fun thing that happened at Breakfast Inn was Littles met a soldier.  Today was Memorial Day, and a few men were having coffee and chatting at a table while we were walking out.  The men were wearing hats that had their Navy service listed on them and Littles happened to say something to one of them as we walked by.  They struck up a conversation and the wife told Littles that gentleman she was talking to was a soldier, just like her grandpas and grandma were.  She told her that today was Memorial Day and that today was a special day to thank soldiers.  Littles thought that was really neat, but got a little shy when it came to thanking the solider.  So, the wife and I said thank you and made our way out of the door.

That’s the great thing about Breakfast Inn, you know what you’re going to get from a food standpoint and you know it’s going to be an experience.  It’s a throwback to a different era; a time when people talked to strangers, a time before people were too caught up in their phones, and a time when people just wanted to spend time together.  That’s what we did today.  We set our lives aside, spent quality time together as a family, and made some memories.  Not too bad for $28 plus tip.  We’re always happy to go to Breakfast Inn, and we’ll definitely be back.