Restaurant Sat Jun 16 2007

A Pink Breakfast Spot along a drab Bicycle Highway

Using fair amounts of pink, The Breakfast Club on Hubbard closes a long stretch of colorless and sleepy low-rise brick commercial buildings from Damen to Noble. Without pink, this simple two-story white-sided frame building might itself fade away into the block of new walk-up condo buildings from Noble to Ogden. Its gleam comes from pink window awnings, a pink door, a pink canopy covering tables on the side, and a covered passage extending from door to sidewalk that is also all pink except "BREAKFAST CLUB" on its sides in white block letters and a little white trim. It also exhibits perhaps the only installation of sidewalk tables on Hubbard until Mart Anthony's Italian Restaurant across Ogden.

8 a.m. Thursday: Hubbard is a virtually car-free expressway for trickles of bicycling commuters into the Loop, and my sidewalk table was a front row seat to many sorts of people pedaling by. Some went in office attire rolling by on cruisers with baskets or panniers, others in racing bikes with spandex, as well as plenty of hard-helmeted riders with messenger bags on simple street bikes.

My server and I matched with our pink shirts. He poured hot coffee from a steaming hot glass carafe into glasses of enough ice to make decent iced coffees for a friend and I. The menu features eggs, Benedicts, omelets, pancakes, waffles and French toast - from $4.25 for one egg to $8.50 for stuffed French toast. But we ordered vegan: lean chunky-style hash browns with curls of green onion that we invigorated with ketchup ($1.95); and toast with packets of jelly ($1.50). This comforting meal accompanied the coffee ($1.50) quite well, and service was very good.

A few feet away, I unlocked my bicycle from a city-installed bike rack and rode into the Loop with my friend, blending into others pedaling along.

1381 W. Hubbard, (312) 666-2372
6:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. weekdays
7 a.m. - 3 p.m. Sat+Sun

— Chris Brunn / Comments (2)