Griddle Cafe

With Monday being Columbus Day and a Public Holiday, at least for me, Liz decided we would have breakfast at The Griddle Cafe. After dropping the kids at school (JE wasn't too happy that he had to go to school when Dad wasn't going to work) we jumped on the Freeway and headed for West Hollywood. We had an interesting conversation on the way about if North Hollywood has been dubbed NoHo, does that mean West Hollywood should be called WeeHo? Liz disagreed, and also said she thought NoHo sounds silly, too. I asked "What about Soho?", which totally confused her.

We found The Griddle Cafe fairly easily (south side of Sunset, just west of Fairfax) and pulled into Hayworth Ave. where we found street parking at 25c/hour. Not bad for that part of town. The Griddle Cafe has tables on the sidewalk out front but even at 9:30am on a warmish Fall morning nobody was sitting outside. All the customers were inside, where just a couple of tables were free.

The greeter waved us further inside with a "sit anywhere, I could care less" attitude. Almost as an afterthought he handed me two menus. We sat ourselves down at a cozy (small) table-for-two and I handed Liz her menu. I thought Liz wanted pancakes so I chose the "Addicted to Noiselle" Stuffed French Toast, then Liz said she wanted Eggs and was going to order a Manhattan Frittata, so I switched my order to the BLUESBerry Pancakes. They came with Blueberry-laced Sour Cream and weren't too bad, but the portion was so large (and doughy) that as hungry as I was, I barely ate half of the three very large blueberry-stuffed pancakes.

Liz's Manhattan Frittata wasn't too bad but she couldn't finish it either. I needed protein, not just empty carbs, so I polished off the last of her ham steak and we took the rest of the pancakes home.

The coffee comes served in a 6-cup French Press and was pretty good, although the waitress was slow bringing out the cream. When it arrived I was glad she brought two little jugs because one of them had little black bits of something floating in it. I don't mind little black bits of something floating in my coffee, but I'm not too keen on little black bits of something floating in my creamer.

Although the triple-stack serving of pancakes is huge, I'm not quite sure they were worth the $10 price tag. Liz's Manhattan was also $10 though, so that's not too bad. We got out of there for $30+tip, which is a little more than I like to spend on breakfast, even for two, especially at what amounts to (in my opinion) nothing more than a rather pretentious diner.

Overall, given the neighborhood in which it's located, I'd give The Griddle Cafe 2 stars out of 5.

Now given my druthers, I'd rather eat at Le Roy's on Huntington in Monrovia, where a very hearty breakfast for two is more likely to weigh in under $25, including tip, and where I can get some of the tastiest and crunchiest Tater Tots this side of the Pecos.

Le Roy's has their own parking lot (which they share with a neighboring mechanic) so parking is free but limited; it fills up quickly when they're busy, which they usually are as it's a popular spot with the locals. Besides being small, the parking lot is also hard to navigate in anything much larger than a sedan, but street parking is also available, sometimes right out front if you get lucky. That said, if you get there early, or don't mind a wait, or don't mind rubbing shoulders with your neighbor at the counter or a communal table, Le Roy's is a good place to go to get a hearty, home-style breakfast at a reasonable price.

The warm welcome from the staff at Le Roy's is also more convincing than the display put on by the lack luster greeter at The Griddle Cafe. If you go during the week and you can wait until after 8:30 to 9am, you should be able to just walk in and sit down. Go during prime breakfast time, or on a weekend, or just turn up without your full party, and you can expect a wait, but it's a wait worth bearing.