 Fifteen time Best of the Bay Breakfast recipient, The Pancake Place, has been on my list for a long time. It is, however, just far enough from my apartment that I often don’t choose to make the trip. On a crisp October morning, I finally stepped out of my comfort zone and drove past Mason Street for once to check it out before the sun had even risen. It’s lucky I left that early. By the time I was finished, the restaurant was nearly full.
Despite being named The Pancake Place, they offer some incredible house specials that go beyond special flavors of pancakes. I was fascinated by the stuffed hashbrowns concept on the menu. I saw pictures on their facebook page and thought myself prepared. When the plate landed on my table, I realized that even a half order was too big for me. A mountain of hashbrowns were delivered piled over sausage and scrambled eggs. Country gravy buried that too. I couldn’t get through it, but I do consider the stuffed hashbrowns to be the most unique item on their menu and a good way to find out what The Pancake Place is all about. Biscuits and Gravy fans like myself can decide from this plate if the gravy is for them. Hashbrown connoisseurs like myself can decide in the hashbrowns are for them. The possibilities are endless from there with a variety of different stuffed hashbrown combinations on the menu such as chili cheese and gyro.
It helps that the waitstaff are wonderful, accommodating people. They’re happy to see you when you walk in the door. They take care of you when you sit. It seems to me that they remember every customer. Sitting by the door, I saw more than one exchange with new customers involving friendly ‘welcome backs’ and small reminders that they were remembered and valued in that little diner. That’s part of what makes a good American Diner Breakfast. The Pancake Place remembers that. If you’re a coffee drinker like myself, they bring a carafe and a bowl of assorted creamers and sweeteners to the table to keep you going for your whole visit. No need to stop in to refill when things get busy– not that the ladies weren’t visiting often enough to refill a coffee if necessary. It’s the perfect way to sit down for a long overdue coffee chat with an old friend or family member you haven’t seen in a long time with zero expectations. Simple coffee. Simple environment. Great food. The Pancake Place has won Best of the Bay fifteen times for a reason. You don’t need me to tell you that, but if you haven’t stopped in yet yourself, consider this article a reminder to plan your visit soon. Beat the rush by getting in as early as you can! Tell them Eating Normal sent you.
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 The meat lovers omelet special at Black Honey Hashery Black Honey Hashery has been on the list for a long time. Their lines are out the door every time I’ve tried to go to brunch on the weekends. All of those times, I was already too hangry to wait. This time around, I finally had the ability and the pleasure to show up on a Friday morning while other people were at work. My father came into town the night before, and I knew this was our chance. So we got in the car and went in search of the restaurant tucked away off of route 32 south. I’ve driven past it a hundred times before without ever knowing it was there. It had to be good if it survived the pandemic AND stayed in that cozy location.
When we arrived, it was the first time I never had to struggle for parking. We managed to get in at their actual parking lot and be seated well before the hangry rage kicked in and made me go elsewhere. I once made it a goal to go in search of the best traditional american breakfast in Green Bay, but this wasn’t the visit for that. I wanted myself a plate of biscuits and gravy and a good cup of coffee. First came the coffee. Collectivo out of Milwaukee is a common choice for a lot of the breakfast joints in Green Bay that do not also roast their own beans, so the standard cup at Black Honey Hashery is a familiar one in town. It does the job. It wakes you up, and it keeps you busy while you wait for your meal. Given that we came in early on a weekday, there wasn’t much waiting to be done.  Tucked away just one block from Main Street in De Pere is Two Birds Bakery Cafe, a small breakfast location that I drove past often and yet never stopped at to try. There is something odd about the building when you only know it from sight– clearly a bank at point point. Is it drive thru only? Do you order at the window? What’s there? I now have the answers to those questions. You can go inside to order. You can also order at the window. There are a variety of breakfast options, baked goods, and drinks to try out from their menu to please any pallet. Upon first visit, it’s certainly hard to decide on what to get. I recommend checking out the online version of the menu ahead of time if you want to go inside to order. The indoor waiting area is tiny with almost all of the interior of the building dedicated to their cookspace. It’s a sight to see. I live close by, so ordering to go and taking my breakfast home did not result in any kind of texture loss in the bacon breakfast burrito that I ordered for the morning. It’s very well wrapped by the staff, and it took them practically no time to get it to the counter for me. Thirty seconds passed between the arrival of my dragonfruit lemonade and the burrito after that. In the amount of time it took me to get out to my car, there were multiple cars in the drive thru that also appeared to be moving through their orders quickly
The lemonade itself is handmade in the building, and that delicious work was augmented wonderfully by the flavored dragonfruit syrup that I ordered with it. The 24 ounce container carried me through til noon, and I caught myself wishing I ordered a larger size to have it to sip on for longer skill. Their drink menu rotates frequently, but this dragonfruit variety appears to be available at nearly all times.
The diner breakfast has been a special part of my life for as long as I can remember. Whether at Denny’s or a small, local place wherever I lived, sitting down for a plate of hashbrowns and pancakes on a Saturday morning brought me back. That’s something that I haven’t tried to find in Green Bay just yet, even after all this time living here. What makes a diner breakfast here at Eating Normal? Hashbrowns (or homefries), eggs, and sausage are expected at a minimum. Pancakes as an add on or base are a bonus, but we will try them at every location they are available. Many of Green Bay’s breakfast locations that I have already visited do not serve these as a single meal, but rather as ‘extras’, and will also be considered. What About Coffee? Green Bay is blessed with a variety of local roasters and coffee houses– this will be a separate segment. Diners aren’t best known for having amazing coffee, and therefore, we’ll look elsewhere for coffee. Where will I be going? Anywhere within the Green Bay Metro area that offers a diner style breakfast is a possibility. At reader suggestion, I’ll go as far as Appleton– but anything I seek out on my own will be within the Green Bay area. We are starting with Julie’s Cafe in De Pere.   Summer of 2023 has given rise to a number of new restaurant concepts in the Green Bay area, and among the newest of these is Vintage Rose Bakery and Sandwich Shop in Lawrence. A short jog off the Scheuring Road exit on I-41, it’s not in the first place I’d think to find breakfast. Most of the businesses in this portion of Lawrence are corporate centers and manufacturing, less so restaurants and shopping. Vintage Rose fills a necessary role for some of the local neighborhoods, however: local coffee and housemade food. Vintage Rose sports a large sign along Mid Valley Drive to help you find it, so if you find yourself on the hunt like I was on a chilly Monday morning, you should be fine. Trust the sign. The building looks like it ought to be more offices, but there’s food in there. I promise. The first warm Saturday of the year invigorated me to go out and enjoy the great City of Green Bay as well as I possibly could, and the best way to start a day of exploration is with a cup of coffee. Kavarna has been on the radar for a long time. The Broadway district is home to many different restaurants and shops I have yet to explore during my time here in town, and Kavarna was no exception. While my husband and I waited for the shops in the mall to open, we stopped in for a quick breakfast and drink. Upon first glance, it looks like a very small coffee house. There is, however, significant seating behind the counter. The front area of the building is deceiving. Don’t be too scared if you arrive and find most of the first tables you see completely full. There may be somewhere to sit left yet. We showed up in the odd moment between the early risers and the brunch crowd, so getting a seat wasn’t so hard for us.
Their cookie for the day was a chocolate chunk cookie that I ordered for myself as a waystation between the early morning and the anticipated early dinner my husband and I would have at the end of our west side adventures for the day. The name tells you what you’re getting: chunks of chocolate, not little chips. Just enough dough to hold them all together and enough salt in it to counter balance the sweetness of the milk chocolate.
Kavarna is slightly out of our way for a frequent experience, but as far as Green Bay’s coffee houses go, their breakfast options are among some of the best that we’ve enjoyed with local coffee. Any daytime excursion to the Broadway district would be incomplete without a visit to Kavarna. Keep an eye out for them during the farmer’s market season. They’re often out on the street during the Wednesday night market serving drinks to keep you wandering the vendors.
We’ll be seeing them again very soon for just that. Thanks for a great start to a great day. New Years Day, we had a group of friends with us for the holiday. Brunch options were limited on the holiday, and the group of football fans descending upon the city for the Packers game the next day already began to arrive. We walked up and down the streets of downtown trying to find a table that we could get into in less than an hour. The Creamery, on that day, was not that place. The line was out the door. The wait was longer than an hour for four people.
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