Breakfast restaurants in California
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Griddle Café
Giant portions, friendly service and French-press coffee keep the wooden tables and U-shaped counter full all morning at this tasty breakfast joint favored by Hollywood’s young and tousled. Located just east of the dark-towered Directors Guild; look for the mobs huddled outside on weekend mornings. Arrive early.
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Hash House a Go Go
This buzzing bungalow makes biscuits and gravy straight outta Carolina, towering benedicts, large-as-your-head pancakes and, of course, hash seven different ways. Come hungry.
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Cafe Fanny
North of University Ave is this café owned by Alice Waters. As you'd expect, it serves excellent cafés au lait, homemade pastries and poached-egg dishes.
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Zachary’s
The breakfast spot covetous locals don’t want you to know about (hide your guidebook). ‘Mike’s Mess’ is the kitchen-sink standout.
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Zazie
Zazie's narrow skylighted dining room and overgrown back garden is about as pleasant a spot for breakfast or lunch as you could find. Eggs, fluffy pancakes (with batter left to rise overnight) and gourmet sandwiches are the order of the daytime. It's also open for dinner, when the menu focuses on the Provençal version of comfort food - nothing spectacular, but not bad when you're shirking the kitchen.
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Square One Dining
Breakfasts here are so darn good you’ll want to lick your square white plate. The decor’s not much but thick slabs of bacon, fluffy egg dishes and unbleached heirloom grits confirm the focus is where it should be. Artists, couples and business brunchers fill tables for the all-organic menu, but for a different view, grab a window seat and watch the buttoned-down faithful at the nearby Scientology complex.
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Uncle Bill’s Pancake House
Nothin’ could be finer than a pancake in a diner known far and wide as Uncle Bill’s. Grab a stool, grab a booth, or best yet grab a table on the sun-drenched patio. In season, the pumpkin-spice pancakes are can’t-miss. Omelets are darn good too. Tousled hipsters, tottering toddlers, gabbing girlfriends – everybody’s here or on the way. Put your name on the clipboard, quick.
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Omelette Inn
From clerks to cops to city-council members, everybody's got a soft spot for this unassuming joint where breakfasts and sandwiches are served in belt-loosening portions. Build up your own omelette from more than 40 ingredients or pick from tried-and-true menu favorites such as The Sicilian or Grecian Formula.
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Noelle's Garden Café
The best (and pretty much only) place for breakfast. There's seating inside the cheery house as well as on the adjoining vine-trellised deck. It has many lunch choices - soups, sandwiches, salads - with lots of veggie options. The breakfast burrito is especially good.
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Martha’s 22nd Street Grill
Every table has an ocean view on the cheery umbrella’d patio just steps from the Strand. Martha’s scrumptious scrambles, tasty wraps and addictive chicken cilantro soup keep locals rolling in by bike, blade and stroller. Don’t worry, the waiting list moves fast.
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Chapter & Moon
The top spot at Noyo Harbor serves down-home American-style cooking (think meatloaf and chicken with dumplings) overlooking the water in a whitewashed room with pinewood tables and ladder-back chairs. Mains are cheap; starters aren't. Good breakfasts.
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Omelette Parlor
An institution since the time Main St was known as Dogtown, festooned with black-and-whites of old Santa Monica, a soundtrack of oldies and a leafy courtyard out back. Big-as-your-head omelets and famous waffles for breakfast may last you to dinner.
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Café 222
Downtown's favorite breakfast place for pumpkin waffles; buttermilk, orange-pecan or granola pancakes; and eggs in scrambles or benedicts. There are lunchtime sandwiches and salads, but we can't get enough of breakfast (available until closing).
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Kendall's Cafe
This coffee shop is a hometown favorite for blueberry pancakes at breakfast and a combination of Mexican (enchiladas, fajitas, etc) and straight-down-the-middle American standards the rest of the day.
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Daybreak Cafe
The veggie-heavy breakfasts are tasty, with omelets and burritos, but the blueberry cornmeal pancakes take the prize. At lunch there's turkey in some dishes, but the place is mostly vegetarian.
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Rene Joule Patisserie
Across from the Cascade Theater, this laidback little café is an excellent choice for breakfast, whether it be gourmet coffee and an oven-fresh muffin or the featured morning egg dish.
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Ernie's
This Tahoe breakfast legend just moved into a sparkling new log cabin south of the 'Y' but still makes the same, no-nonsense, all-American breakfasts. Portions are big, prices are not.
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Golden Harvest Cafe
Tops for breakfast with a hangover (it's windowless), Golden Harvest serves classic benedicts, four-egg omelets, and pancakes with real maple syrup. Alas, the coffee sucks.
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Peninsula Fountain and Grill
A lively beauty, the Peninsula Fountain was founded in 1923 but still has that opening day buzz and sparkle. It's famous for its frothy milkshakes and for hefty American breakfasts.
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Squeeze Inn
For breakfasts big enough to feed a lumberjack you can't beat this snug locals' favorite, which serves over 60 varieties of omelettes.
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Squeeze Inn
For breakfasts big enough to feed a lumberjack you can't beat this snug locals' favorite, which serves over 60 varieties of omelettes.
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Beach Hut No 2
Start the day with pancakes, waffles or omelettes from Beach Hut No 2 on Hermosa Beach.
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Old Post Office
For scrumptious breakfasts the place to beat is the Old Post Office, nearby Gar Woods Grille & Pier.
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Café 222
Downtown's favorite breakfast place for pumpkin waffles, orange-pecan or granola pancakes, and farm-fresh eggs Benedict. The French toast stuffed with peanut butter and bananas was featured on the Food Network.
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