WARNING SIGNS

As you all know, Tom and I go out for breakfast a lot. Since we're both early risers and share only one day off, breakfast on Saturday mornings is one of the few times that we can share a meal together and neither one of us is exhausted after a day of work. So we're always on the look out for new breakfast places. We certainly have our favorites, but one that I had seen and not yet tried was Chester's in the Gourmet Ghetto.

We got there a little before 8:30 (when they open), so decided to walk down to use an ATM on Shattuck. While we were walking over, we could smell the fresh bread baking at Cheeseboard and we saw the line of people waiting to get into Cheeseboard (which also opened at 8:30). We almost considered going to Cheeseboard and getting some cheese sticks, but were set on going to Chester's and headed back over.

By the time returned, I had kinda expected other diners to have shown up. I should've taken this as a warning sign. People in Bay Area are all food fanatics. You've gotta get to good places early, even for breakfast, if you hope to snag a seat. Look at Bette's Oceanview Diner- if you get there after 8:30, plan to wait 45 minutes for a table. That applies to Fat Apple's and many other places, so the early hour was not a good explanation for the empty seats.

When we were let it, it was by a hostess/waitress who seemed rather displeased to see us. I don't expect servers to be super cheerful and excited - after all, I work in the service industry, too, but her dour attitude started off our meal on a down note. Out of all the seats she could've chosen for us in this empty restaurant, she sat us in a corner seat, with me sitting on a very uncomfortable, hard bench. When we looked at the menu, there wasn't anything particularly special, but I did notice the high prices- starting at around $12 for everything on the breakfast menu. Here's a photo of the empty interior.

We finally place our orders, and then the long wait began for our food to arrive. During this time, one older couple entered, were seated, took a look at the menu, were kinda ignored and walked out. They were smart.

Let me remind you that we were the only people sitting in this entire restaurant, and the first customers of the day, and it still took almost 20 minutes for our food to finally make an appearance. Here's a photo of my breakfast scramble- it involved tomatoes, cheese, turkey sausages, eggs and I dont' remember what else. It was ok, but I could've done better at home.

And here's Tom's order of steak and eggs. His steak was a cheap cut with more fat than anything else that made it pretty inedible. Overall I would sum up our experience by saying it sucked.

We're certainly never going back to this place, but the take home lesson is this: if you're in the Gourmet Ghetto and see an empty restaurant, walk away and go to the closest place with a crowd or a line. You may have to wait, but your meal will probably be worth the wait.