It’s a little bit unsettling to be the only person in a diner when it opens, especially one like the Hungry Frog, where the rising sun glimmers off the hundreds of glass and ceramic frog tchotchkes staring at you, the fluorescent lights above still mustering their power to full strength, shadows cast as bug eyes follow your every move.
Squinting to read the laminated menu in the burgeoning morning light, the smell of burning coffee and greasy griddles warming up fill the air as a very special type of hunger takes over your body; it’s the hollow primordial sense that, sleep still in your eyes and drool still in your beard, all of a sudden this is the most important meal you’ve ever had and you must fill up because, honestly, when will breakfast come around again? When will food come around again?
Much like dentistry and natural gas as an utility, breakfast is one of those luxuries that many of us in today’s America have had to cut out completely, either for economical or somnambulistic reasonings. Still, when I get the chance to take part in this ancient tradition, I like to do it up in grand atomic family style, in a greasy spoon setting filled with cheap eats and cheaper meats.
Forget all of these sparse hipster joints with names like Toast or Syrup or the Happy Brekker or whatever; the best breakfasts are still those that are surrounded by grizzled ham and eggers, old women puffing on Capris and nodding off junkies trying to make a cup of coffee last all morning, the kind of place where everything comes with a side of grease and potatoes, served by a middle-aged waitress who calls you “Hon.”