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?