Went to Emmaville for breakfast this morning. Its about a 40 minute drive, but there are many breakfast places around Itasca State Park. I enjoy going out for breakfast, probably more than any other meal. But I don’t get pancakes. I’m more of an eggs and meat guy.
The place we went to, called Emmaville Cafe because there is little else in the town, is a convenience store, motel, cabin rental, campground, gas station, boat rental, and diner. And probably a few more things that I am missing. But the diner is the part I’m focused on here.
The best breakfast places are diners. Diners can be excellent and not so excellent. This is one of the good ones. Nothing fancy. They are only trying to impress you with their food and service. Not the decor, not fancy words on the menu, not fancy signage.
The owners, a couple of course, bought it a few years ago and brought new emphasis to the diner. Better hours and better food. She makes fresh cinnamon and caramel rolls every morning and those alone are worth the driving distance.
Diner breakfast is simple food made well. I got eggs and ham this morning and shared some marble rye toast. But my brother-in-law got the pancakes. Plate-sized pancakes that were, so he said, light and fluffy. I’ve been to a lot of breakfast restaurants in my life and that is apparently a hard thing to do.
It is clear the owners care a lot about the place and continue to make improvements. In fact, one time we messed up and went there on a day the diner wasn’t open. They still have the rolls and then they mentioned they had breakfast pizzas and they would be happy to cook one up for us.
Oh my. Pizza crust, sausage gravy, eggs, and sausage. It was excellent. Basic and all the ingredients were tasty.
There are all kinds of restaurants for all kinds of people. Fortunately, there are lots of small town diners in the world for me to go to.
Leave a Reply