- February 18th, 2011
- Comments Off on Best Chicago Breakfast?
What’s your favorite breakfast? Where do you go to fill the morning rubbles in the old tummy tomb? Is it a pile of pancakes? A handmade lump of the tastiest sausage? What is your ideal breakfast? Eggs? Bacon? Something sweet? Savory? We’ve got your ideal breakfast covered here at Southport Grocery and here is why.
the eggs
Simple, straight forward, but very easy to mess up. We think our eggs are awesome – fluffy, not dry, never too wet, and the perfect doneness. Over easy? No problem. The other thing is we’re pretty straight forward on our ingredients – fresh, accessible but interesting. We’ll shake up your preconceived notions of what you thought about omelets a bit maybe, but we aren’t pulling ingredients off the space station – we’re very down to earth. Which leads us to the next section.
the ingredients
Yeah, we know. Everyone talks about hyper-local-organically grown everything – we get it. But just for the record, we get what we can locally and sustainable. It might surprise some to know that we house smoke our brisket, smoke and cure our pastrami, roast and slice the chicken, turkey, roast beef, all in house. We slice the vegetables, roast them, chop them and add them to the veggie and chop salad. We are a scratch kitchen – a dying breed in the world of breakfast restaurants. We crack our own eggs, we make our baked goods from scratch, we do almost everything from scratch. Two things we have to source: sliced potatoes for the hash and egg whites – both would require full time employees just doing that one job all day everyday to fulfill how much we go through. Speaking of our employees…
the people
Our staff is well versed, super fun, and kind. We are human though, we admit it, sometimes – just like you – we have bad days. But we try and do our best so you can have a great time in our place, because that is what it’s all about. Great food, a great time, and service; we think our people rock and do an amazing job of keeping it together during the controlled chaos that is weekend brunch. Our staff changes slowly, unlike a lot of restaurants – it is not uncommon to have a waiter that has been at Southport Grocery for over a year. We grow to have real meaningful friendships – we care about each other and the customers, we try and never push you out the door. Somepeople’s food experience takes longer than others, and we think it’s worth the wait – check out the neighborhood while you do! All of the staff does what they can to know the ins and outs of the menu, but aren’t afraid to ask another server for deeper info. But its not just about the people who work at SPG, but the folks who come in are awesome too: the people that come in every Tuesday to read the paper and have their favorite omelet, the families that come in with their kids and have a breakfast tradition, and the out-of-towners who come all the way up from the loop because they read in their travel book that our breakfast rules. We’re overjoyed and humbled each time regulars and new folks walk in and give us a go.
the menu
Some places like to tell you their menu is innovative and then you come to realize it’s the same list as the local dive. We think our menu is fun, interesting, and something a little different. We take your favorites and put them to a new light, make you reevaluate what you knew – like bread pudding pancakes, or the cupcake pancakes – just a new view on the tried and true.
the reviews
We hear a lot at the check out, we’re plugged into facebook and twitter, try and catch all the blogs written about us, and are happy to hear from everyone! Don’t take our word for it – check our yelp page or read the horribly out of date metromix page. We read all of our reviews – the good, the bad, and the ugly – there is something to learn from each one. Sure, you can’t make everyone happy – but does that mean we shouldn’t try?
And maybe that is why we are the best place for breakfast in Chicago – we love food and want to share out passion. Come and join us on our journey from farm, to the kitchen, to your table and on to your stomach.
Comments are closed.