Breakfast is not a meal that I like to eat in a restaurant. I don't eat the bread, the sweets, and rarely like restaurant bacon.

We seldom eat out...especially for breakfast. When we do I prefer a Mom & Pop place for sure. As a single Mom, I used to do a lot of restaurant work for a second job. For a while, I worked the graveyard shift and would help in back cooking breakfast food so I know a few tricks, most of which are very quick and easy.

I agree, getting stuff finished at the same time is a challenge. I like to prep everything before I cook so it's just ready to go, I make hash browns and soak them in water, I convection bake the bacon so I get it ready in a cookie sheet, I usually grill our toast, so I have it buttered and ready to go. If I make omlettes it's the same thing, getting all the stuff I want to put in it ready to go too.

I don't care for standard breakfast out. I can do bacon and eggs and pancakes better at home. I love greasy spoons and little dive places that have things like hand breaded chicken fried steak and homemade sausage gravy, house made corned beef hash, huevos rancheros, etc. One place I go to has a fabulous "kitchen sink", (potatoes,onions,peppers, bacon or ham, shredded cheese topped with eggs and served with your choice of toast, biscuit, or giant fluffy platter sized pancake. Another has a great chili verde omelette, another a great huevos burrito filled with house made chili and eggs and smothered in Spanish sauce with fresh avocado, another has wonderful linguica and eggs, still another had the best puffy omelettes. Up until the last few years I was able to get a real waffle (not those awful thick, Belgian doughy things) with crisp thick sliced bacon baked right in. Unfortunately they changed to "Belgian" irons.

You eat at those types of establishments and Denny's/Ihop/Waffle House just don't cut it. I'm a greasy spoon food snob. LOL

Mom & Pop place. Best place to eat breakfast out on the road is at truck stops, especially out West. I also like Waffle House, coffee and raisin toast. Lauren and I ate at our local one this morning because I hadn't bought any food yet, after returning from vacation. Had an omelete which wasn't great. We usually can share one breakfast between us and still not finish it, but today she was wanting cheese sticks and a waffle, so I ordered my own.

Its Denny's for us on many occasions. When I pay, I whip out my AARP card along with my credit card and get a 15% discount. That's because we are seniors.

I avoid Denny's and IHop now. The quality just isn't there. I think what turned me off to IHop was the potato patty they served instead of actual home fries. Something you would get in a McDonald's. This is years ago and maybe it's not the same all over.

The last Denny's I went to was also years ago and it was a greasy spoon. So, I crossed them off my list.

Diners are usually okay, but I'm hard pressed to find a really good local one. My cousin in NJ has a really good one and I wish it was near me.

There is one Mom and Pop in town. Not my cup of tea though.

We often stop at McDonald when on the road. The egg Mcmuffin is acceptable.

Not breakfast, but I get the Southwest salad which grilled chicken which is fine for a quick lunch on the road.

I agree with Sandplum..Jimmys Egg! It's the best!

We eat out when we vacation....so it's breakfast at the hotel. One of our favorite places to eat breakfast is the Best Western Bryce Canyon. Our next reservation is @ Estes Park, our 4th time there. We bring our own microwave as the hotel does not serve breakfast. I'll be cooking! I'd rather eat at home otherwise.

Don't care for IHOP and especially don't care for Denny's. Local place for breakfast. It is so good. It is run by a high school teaching students restaurant functions and positions. They instruct in restaurant management, time management, food purchasing, being a chef, being a baker, just all you can imagine that has to take place in a restaurant, even dishwashing and waitressing. The food is great and the place is always packed for breakfast and lunch.

mom and pop or a good diner....

denny's is awful around here, haven't been to one in over 20 years and IHOP is not that great and way overpriced...

although we mostly eat a home, 90% of the time....

great diner in Rio Grande, NJ., just THE BEST breakfast ever....we are in suburb of philly and no one around here comes close to NJ diner.,

"we are in suburb of philly and no one around here comes close to NJ diner.,"

We just moved to the same area. Found Fairlane Grill in Erdenheim is good, but there just are not many breakfast places at all. I see a number of bakeries that say they have breakfast, but it is pastries, not egg-type breakfasts. Rio Grande looks like Cape May area, right? A little far to drive for breakfast. I'll have to keep looking. Not even a Denny's around here, closest IHOP. which I have never liked, is on 202. Anything else?

Sushipup, you should hop on to yelp and see what other's are says about spots in your area.. My daughter finds the funnest places using Yelp.

Already did. Not much except the bakeries. Simply not a big breakfast area. Where we lived before, along the California Coast, the best breakfast places were near the fishing wharves, great early morning eats. Oh. and I am excluding the places that serve weekend "brunches". I am looking for real breakfast, not weekend specials.

I'm with the none-of-the-above people.as the first choice. My crepes are better, my omelets are better, my pancakes or waffles are only ever served with real maple syrup, and my espresso is top notch. Since for me the good, espresso-based coffee is the most important consideration, if I'm away from home I'd most likely choose a local coffee shop, or a Dunkin Donuts, or as a last resort Starbucks, and then select a egg-based sandwich or a pastry

We love a good breakfast but we prefer it at around 11 a.m.! Don't like chains so there's several local diners across Oakland/Berkeley (NorCA) that we choose from, depending on where we're running errands.

Otherwise we eat at home, but a full breakfast is almost as much trouble as making dinner, LOL.

Restaurants abound where we live, and frankly there's any number of them here which cook as well as I do....and I consider myself a very good cook. Going out has its advantages, one being that DH and I can have totally different breakfasts depending on what we feel like having. One of our fav places does both B/L, so if we arrive around noon whoever feels like having lunch can do so, while the other can stick to breakfast.

We were at weekend brunch last Sunday with a couple of our friends, at a fav upscale Southern restaurant where we all go about once a month. Two had the fried chicken Benedict w/Creole Hollandaise, one had the superb grits (Logan Turnpike Mill brand) with roasted cherry tomatoes, and the other had a confit duck hash with beet ketchup that won raves from all four of us as the best dish we'd ever had at that restaurant. A side of fried catfish; an order of the "Sexy Bacon" which is both spicy and sweet; and a basket of their biscuits which are made with White Lily flour and excellent.

My DH loves that bacon so much I make it at home - simple, but a little time-consuming as I prefer a two-step process rather than the usual one-step glazing technique. We're retired so a lot of my cooking has shifted towards cooking that takes more time/watching. This works well because restaurants here have such high costs they have shifted to dishes that are cooked fast/hard. Gives us the best of both worlds!

I'm probably the only person here who has never eaten at an iHop or Denny's.

For those who say they like breakfast at home better - fair enough. Certainly for M-F for working stiffs (as I used to be)

For regular and simple breakfasts, if fresh and not too greasy and enough care is taken, a lot of places can fill the bill if that's what's desired.

For those who say breakfast is better at home - I'm going to suggest you haven't had a breakfast in a good restaurant. I don't know which restaurant jakkom is describing but I think I live not too terribly far away and know many places that are similarly more than worth the effort to go to. I not too long ago had a fresh Crab Benedict, on artichoke hearts instead of a muffin, poached organic eggs and from scratch hollandaise. There were a handful of other similar, interesting choices and I don't consider that one restaurant to be anything special. Given some number of hours of preparation, I might have a chance to do Crab Benedict (so long as the hollandaise doesn't break) but why bother when such stuff is easily found and enjoyed in restaurants?

We love breakfasts out. We don't do it a lot, it's a treat. I'll get sausage, eggs and homefries, and I love that they deep-fry the sausages. I don't like sausages on the grill where they have black marks on the outside, it's not cooked all the way around, like deep frying does. Sometimes I'll get a 'skillet' breakfast with homefries and vegetables cooked in a skillet (sometimes I'll get ham too), topped with an egg and cheese. Yummy and gooey, but often too filling.

Hubby will get BLT's and homefries, or something else that doesn't have eggs. He likes my pancakes better, so he passes on those.

Oh, and always, always at independent family restaurants.

Just remembered the Trolley Car in Chestnut Hill, but we've only had lunch there so far. And there is a diner on Ridge, but it looks large, not a little place. OK, have more places to try for breakfast.

Egg McMuffin and senior coffee at Mac's.

Le Peep. All fresh (I think.) Last time I got scrambled eggs with roasted tomatoes, artichoke hearts, spinach and cream cheese. Heaven! The roasted tomatoes tasted like candy.

Egg McMuffin during breakfast hours is a close second. And I'm picky. The last Egg McMuffin I had was perfect and it looked like it had a real egg. The muffin was soft and delicious. Only problem is that is was expensive for 17 grams of protein and only 300 calories (IIRC). I need more fuel.

I had the bourbon steak skewer at Denny's too. It was good! Very surprised. It didn't taste much like breakfast though. The steak was a perfect pink inside.

I used to love ihop until they told me that the strawberry rhubarb pancake topping came out of a carton. I don't need to go out only to be served processed food on a plate.

I haven't been able to cook in my kitchen for the last six weeks. I make great eggs. I am so sick of carbs. I want protein, veggies and fruit. That is all. Stop forcing potatoes and bread on me. And cereal is not food.

The last time my daughter and had Egg McMuffin and coffee at McDonalds, the tastes were so awful, we could not eat nor drink the horrible offerings. We both decided we would never go back to McDonald's for anything.

Jane, the eggs in the McMuffins ARE real eggs! ;-)

Perhaps my daughter and I should give McDonald's another chance. It could have been just the one place we purchased the previously mentioned goods.

^^^ Or it could have been the food preparation. I don't trust the coffee. I had a fish sandwich at the same mcdonalds and it was awful. And I love their fish sandwiches. But never again. That's why I was so surprised at the egg mcmuffin. I think I hit it at prime breakfast time and got a good food preparer. There was a line at the drive thru. Apparently I was driving too slow because the server was holding the bag of food outside the window as I drove up.

I tried subway breakfast sandwich - bad. I knew it would be questionable when I saw them pull the pre-made egg out (it was big, flat and yellow). Then the bacon tasted like really gross smoky jerky - funny tasting. That's why I have no expectations for fast food anymore. Even the egg sandwich I had at starbucks was not very good. So nice to be back in my kitchen! It's easy to scramble 2 eggs with organic whole milk, fresh ground sea salt, top with extra sharp cheddar and plate with fresh strawberries and toasted buttered hard roll. So simple and so much tastier than any restaurant. Like cheese souffle!

Snidely, I think it depends on the cook and the home. I don't recall the conversation in it's entirety, but the other day my husband told me the reason he prefers to eat at home is because in his opinion, food that is cooked by someone who loves you always tastes better than food that isn't. It's the TLC, I tend to agree. ;c)

Generally speaking I like mom & pop type places but only if they're really good. To generalize and say they're always better is as far off as saying everything homemade is automatically better. Simply not true. One of my favorite places is 120 miles away so it's not a frequent stop. There's another favorite place that's not too far that is an incredible value, lots of food, excellent service and top quality. The service is speedy too. They move a big volume of people and food and a lot of the people in the area are on time constraints. Truck drivers, law enforcement and people from high to low income eat there. People can brag all they want but I would doubt they can really make it much cheaper and I'd challenge anyone to make it better than it usually is.

There's another mom & pop place that is quite good but a different direction and I don't go that way often. Food is usually quite good and value is pretty good. There's a few other mom & pops that are OK to good, but not spectacular - not really much if any better than Denny's or Country Kitchen with the exception of the ambiance.

I have a Country Kitchen that is not too far and I've always had good food there. There's a couple of Denny's that are nearby and both will normally serve up good food most of the time. As they change staff there can be variances. I got kind of bored with Perkins but was there the other day and they had a grilled smoked sausage that was fabulous, plus I like the apricot syrup they have for pancakes. The big advantage of Denny's and Perkins is that they're open 24 hours and often I like to go for breakfast in the early morning hours.

I've only been to Ihop once or twice and was TOTALLY unimpressed. It wasn't bad, just not worth the effort to go there. To me, pancakes are a part of a breakfast, not the main breakfast.

I used to enjoy Old Country Buffet for breakfast. Prices were cheap, and there were a few of them around who had very good food. But the whole buffet concept is becoming an endangered species and they closed down all of the OCBs and counterparts in my area.

When mobility and pain were less of an issue I enjoyed making breakfast myself but now it's enjoyable to get out for some air and exercise, especially in the middle of the night when things are quiet and calm. I usually try to combine it with a store trip when I need to pick up a few things.

We call Waffle House, Awful House! Eaten at 3 different ones and will never go to another one!!!

There are no mom and pop places here? As close as I can get, I like to go to, Germantown Cafe. It's in a converted house in an old neighborhood of Nashville. I do not understand bashing chains or praising m&p places? I have eaten at chains that are acceptably good, and I have eaten at mom and pop places that were totally awful. Hardly seems ironclad to be fantastic if one is a mom and pop place??? At the very least, it seems like an obscure generalization!

Hands down, a good mom and pop. (Yes, rob, there are some bad ones.) We have some great Greek diners around here, also an eatery that serves up locally farmed eggs and bacon. Another that makes a great eggs Benedict where you can sub in spinach instead of ham. If I have to eat at a chain, Panera's makes a serviceable breakfast.

Rhizo, the eggs at McDonalds are only real eggs if you ask for "whole eggs" or something like that. And assuming they actually serve you those... I haven't wanted to experiment. Otherwise they are Liquid Egg Product, which yes, is/are derived from real eggs, but my digestive system claims otherwise. (To put it mildly, within half an hour, I need a throne in the most painful way imaginable.)

So, unless I really know a place, I only order my eggs fried or poached, when dining out.

I never said there were NO good ones, but that doesn't mean every mom-and-pop place is the absolute best ever??? That's the puzzling part. Well that, and that every chain is the absolute worst. At least that's the impression I get when I'm on this board. By far, that is the majority opinion.

I'm not against them, but its a case by case issue, not capable of an all encompassing statement issue.

Egg McMuffin has a real egg, other breakfast items have processed eggs. Here is a graphic off the McDonald's web site that tells you what kind of egg is in each item:

http://www.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/McDonalds/FAQ/detail/eggpreparation_ingredient_storytelling_full.jpg

I guess it will only be egg mcmuffins for me.

Rob, sometimes it's the menu. Like I don't like the menu at IHOP because I prefer savory to their overly sweet stuff. Not all diners are good, but the best ones will have food freshly cooked to order and service that keeps your coffee cup full. Staff at places like Denny's really don't care as much as the person who has a business interest in keeping customers happy.

Haven't gone in ages, but the last time it was an IHOP...food was good.

sushipup- I would disagree about staff at Denny's not caring as much as a mom n pop place. Those servers make 2.13 an hour. Their livelihood is dependent on the tips they receive.

I agree completely with sushipup. Judging by Yelp ratings in my area, most people are like-minded.

I don't know that the "Mom and Pop" term is best, locally owned non-chain and non-franchise is probably more accurate for what I find serves the best food, and not just for breakfast. When an owner is in the kitchen and/or in the front of the house, they have control and visibility over what brings back customers and what drives them away. A chain/franchise place will starve for business when there are nearby places putting out better and more interesting food. Workers at Dennys seem indistinguishable from those at places like McDonalds - they seem to be going through the motions in a disinterested way.

Another chain experience was when I had breakfast at a Waffle House on a visit to the South. And a lunch at Cracker Barrel. No desire to go back to either. Yet the same town had many unpretentious local places that served delicious food. Why go somewhere mediocre when there are better choices? And too many chains, in my experience, are no better than mediocre.

In California servers make full minimum wage before tips. Also, several cities have some of the highest minimum wages in the country. So service has generally gone down in the chains. In mom and pop establishments management tends to stress better service. They have more control over their employees. There are exceptions but it really depends on the management. But a lot of "managers" are nothing more than hosts/hostesses/cashiers with a title. Again not always, but often enough to make a visible difference in service overall.

The double whammy is larger mom and pop places cannot afford to staff as fully due to their increased costs, Obamacare etc. so everyone loses.

It's also not legal to tipout the back of the house here. So the cook is working for less in his pocket than the server after a sweaty shift in the kitchen making the food the customers judge the restaurant by.

In California servers make full minimum wage before tips. Also,
several cities have some of the highest minimum wages in the country. So
service has generally gone down in the chains. In mom and pop
establishments management tends to stress better service. They have more
control over their employees.

Your premise is flawed. If ALL servers receive full minimum wage, why would mom and pop places (I hate that term! It connotes "small town, homie, maybe even backwards!, etc. when it means a sole proprietorship, someone who owns their own business and works 24/7/365. My cousin is one such person), have more control? Chains can hire/fire just as easily. What am I missing? How are they "stressing better service"? I would think there would be more opportunity for advancement, for instance, at a chain--especially a national chain!

Well the mom and pop places I've known are more likely to let poor servers go. In other words, fire them for giving poor service. Many places like Denny's don't really care if they lose customers due to bad service or mediocre food since there are more than enough to go around. Especially the Denny's that are off the freeways. They don't care about locals coming back. They are road stops for travelers. But it really comes down to management. I have an excellent local Denny's. I don't generally like eating at a d Denny's since there are so many other options but it's a well run place in their chain.

Let's put it like this. I used to go to a local mom and pop place where I was a regular. One day a friend and I received horrid service. It was a by a waitress who wanted to spend her time on the male customers. We two women were not worth her time and she made it quite obvious. Now I am pretty tolerant and I know that sometimes what appears to be bad service really isn't always the fault of the server. But this was openly direct rude and BAD service. Huffing, slammed down a pitcher of tea, didn't bring politely requested basics etc..

So I just happened to know the cooks were the "real" management behind this particular place. So I go to the kitchen and mention what she did and didn't do. She was let go at the end of her shift. Badda bing- fired!

Had this happened a chain I would most likely have had some underpaid host tell me it would be taken care of, they might offer a comp or a free dessert or something. But the worker would most likely get a warning or a slap on the wrist.

THAT is the control a mom and pop outfit has. They don't have to worry about corporate politics etc. They don't have to make excuses for their staff. On the other hand this particular place protected their good workers against abusive customers also like a mama bear protects its cubs. That was the flip side.

Chains under corporate control don't get to hire/fire as freely. Managers have to show reason and employee turnover records are kept just like food inventory and sales.

You still don't convince me. Your evidence is anecdotal and does nothing to further your premise. It's anecdotal, and full of opinion. I could just as easily say, if they're so bad, why are there so many chain restaurants, for instance? Who is paying to keep them open? Denny's is ubiquitous (1600 stores!) and it fills whatever niche it does. It's also been around for decades (franchised in 1963). I've also seen family owned places keep family on who don't do as good as job as they could, knowing they wouldn't get fired? You prove nothing to me. But nice try!

OK. You can have your opinion and I can have mine. So what?

My evidence may be anecdotal to you but is based on personal experience. What's yours?

We don't have a particular breakfast chain here. Ours are more pub/roadhouse as in Jack Astors, Montanas, Casey's, etc.

Our breakfast and lunch restaurants are family-owned. I've been to Denny's, Cracker Barrel, and a few others. I didn't care for them. I've never been to Waffle House or IHop.

The restaurants do what they want for tipping.....some share the tips among all of the staff, which I agree with. The poor guy killing himself in the kitchen doesn't make any extra money. Some owners have been taking a share out of the tips. This has since become illegal as of December, 2015.

There's a restaurant here that's been a fixture for decades. It's fun and quirky to go. It's run by a couple of gruff guys, a cooktop out front where you can see him doing the bacon and homefries etc. You are expected to walk in and help yourself to the coffee pot. It's not long before you see that, the first time you go, as you wait patiently to be waited on. One time we went, and as he was dishing up our meals, he looked at the pile of homefries, and deemed there weren't enough and proceeded to pile it up further. Hubby's pancakes filled the plate, literally. Fun place.

LOL, we took my Mom and step-father one time, and she was mortified. It's a tad rough......tears on the vinyl booth seats, etc etc. We teased her about taking her again, for a while afterwards.

Difference is, I'm not trying to convince you watch? Yea, it's an opinion, not a fact. But then yours isn't fact, only presented as such!

jasdip, that sounds like a place down the road from me that serves coffee and assorted sweets. There are cups and you pour your own. When you're done, you pay at the register, volunteering to pay for what you consumed. I love places that are different. I really like them all, even chains (sometimes. In Nashville proper, the staff is far more attentive than the part of town where I live and they suck! monstrously awful). Maybe if a sole proprietor opened up, I'd go there and it'd be just like is being presented above. I know they'd be far superior if they were also different.

My kind of place, Jasdip.

Reminds me of my favorite burger place. Now we have dozens of places to choose from here. I have just about every chain available within 10 minutes or so. But my favorite is a little hole in the wall I drive a ways to get to in a sketchy little strip mall in a somewhat sketchy part of town. It used to be between a liquor store and a pot club. LOL Those tenants have left and it remains to be seen what goes in next. It's a great place to take visitors you want to impress with a good burger if you can get them out of the car due to the environment. Especially at night..

Yeah yeah yeah. This isn't HT. So enough with the you think you can read my mind and make my words mean what you want them to BS. You are looking sillier by the minute with your snarky little call outs. Over and out.

Yay! Over and out! Cool. Putting your foot down. HA!

"Staff at places like Denny's really don't care as much as the person who has a business interest in keeping customers happy."

That theory is totally flawed. The wait staff at a "mom & pop" seldom owns the place! So what is their "business interest" in keeping people happy? None. They hire kids off the street just like the corporate chains and they're stuck trying to find people with a good attitude just like anyplace else. Plus the small, single places have to compete with other places so often they'll run short staffed too, even though people criticize the corporates for maintaining minimal staff. Small places seldom pay more to a high school kid and the benefits are non-existent in most places. Employers in any type of business are all hoping to find people with a good work ethic.

I just returned from my overall favorite breakfast spot. It's really an interesting operation. One restaurant, not a chain. The owners do NOT work there. Most of the employees have been there a long time, especially the waitresses (and yes, they're all women) and the interesting thing is all the waitresses are "older" than you usually see. They all have a great work ethic. They give great service. They get rewarded with excellent tips too, from what I've seen. And they move volume so they're well compensated, although they work hard for their money. The other interesting thing that occurred to me this morning is the "hostess" (again, always a female) is generally a younger woman. I sense the hostess spot is a training spot rather than a promotion. I'd guess she doesn't share in the tips and I wonder if they start someone there to see if they could advance to the waitress spot as a promotion and increase in pay although I haven't noticed it happen. It could be it's a minimum pay job and expect high turnover and concentrate on keeping the waitresses and cooks happy. There's been turnover now in cooks but the ones there now have been there a few months.

The Denny's I go to have a large turnover but they do seem to last several months anyway. The Country Kitchen I go to has long time wait staff. One is an RN who was talking the one day that she quit nursing because she makes so much more money waiting on people than she did nursing that she quit nursing. I find that to be really sad.

I don't know any mom and pop establishments that hire high school kids here anymore. Unless it's a relative you won't find many service jobs available to high school kids as they once were. Even the fast food places are hiring more adults and fewer kids. They still do but not as much as before. My kids had paycheck jobs by age 14. I haven't seen an under 18 year old in quite some time. You also see a lot of seniors or early retirees taking the jobs that high school kids once held.

I couldn't say how tips are. Fewer people leave cash on the table these days in our area. Most pay with CCs. I try to tip well. I will not be "culture bullied" into tipping higher for poor service however. I know which places I go that tip out the other support staff so I tend to tip a bit higher there.

This past Saturday, after my niece's wedding a large group from her side of the family all planned to go to a diner for brunch. The place was called "Four-Star Diner" but I don't think that its name is an accurate reflection of its quality.

The place was pretty good, the meal was fun because of the big group, but the size of our group, the noise of our group, and the fact that additional people kept showing up, probably made the service less than top notch.

I ordered slightly off-the-menu, and that seemed to throw them for a loop. Instead of coffee, I ordered espresso, with a glass of cold milk, and I had to re-ask for the glass of cold milk several times. The menu listed many omelets, including a lox and onion omelet, so I ordered a lox and cream cheese omelet, which also seemed to stump them. After sending the order back to the kitchen, someone came out and asked "Did I want the onion on the side on with lox and cream cheese bagel?" Um, close, but no cigar.

When the food arrived the omelet was pretty good, although not quite as good as I could have done, plus the toast that was supposed to be included didn't arrive until the omelet was 2/3rds gone.

Fairly late in the meal, when the brides arrived, and a cheer went out from our group, the waitress was delighted. She subsequently shared that she had "come out" to her parents a couple of years ago, and they essentially disowned her, and haven't spoken to her since even though they live only a couple of blocks away.

My wife's brother picked up the entire bill, which included a gratuity because of our group size. But we included an additional cash tip directly to the waitress