Tag: waffles

Morning Squeeze

Anyone who has lived in Phoenix for a while may remember a time when many downtown restaurants were open only on weekdays to serve lunch to nearby office workers. Now, more have embraced dinner service to reflect increased evening activity. In Tempe, those who follow developments on Mill Avenue know that part of town becomes most lively after dark. With rising residential populations in and near the downtowns of both cities, there is now a proliferation of breakfast restaurants situated in urban centers, including the newest one, Morning Squeeze.

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Vovomeena

For the past decade, the intersection of Seventh Avenue and McDowell in central Phoenix has become a busy restaurant corner with a steady pace of new arrivals. The only problem, aside from the inevitable complaints about parking, is that so many of the newcomers are outposts of national chains, a trait that makes them somewhat unwelcome in the indie-leaning historic districts. One local dining critic even went so far as to describe the scene as a “fast food dump.” Among the franchised burgers and burritos, there is one local player for breakfast: Vovomeena.

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Daily Jam

Jam is no longer a word used just to describe a fruit spread for toast, extended musical improvisation, or congested traffic conditions. It has become a quick way of describing a person’s personal preferences, whether in music, food, or just about any aspect of life. For those whose jam is eating breakfast in downtown Tempe, Daily Jam has been around for a decade now to fulfill that need. With its morning mission, the restaurant stands in contrast to so many of its Mill Avenue neighbors with their focus on lunch, dinner, bar food, and late-night eats.

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Matt’s Big Breakfast

It’s interesting how even the most adventurous eaters tend to be conservative about breakfast. People who gladly consume foods from outside their own family traditions in the afternoon and evening often revert to familiar dishes like eggs, bacon, pancakes, and waffles in the morning. Matt’s Big Breakfast, having recently expanded from its tiny original site to multiple locations, continues to embrace the familiar but takes the classics to an uncommon level by stressing high-quality, locally-sourced ingredients and a hand-crafted approach to their preparation.

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MATCH Market & Bar

2020 has been a terrible year for the restaurant industry, and while everyone has suffered, some of the biggest impact has been felt at hotel restaurants. With travel a fraction of what it was before, many properties have shuttered entirely while others have had to reduce operations. For hotel restaurants to survive, they’ve had to rethink their operations and adapt. In the case of the artsy FOUND:RE hotel at the north end of downtown Phoenix, its former full-service restaurant, MATCH, has reopened as a combination of a casual restaurant, a gourmet shop, and a bar.

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Roll Avenue

Ice cream is one of those foods that has a specific place of origin but has been embraced throughout the world, often with distinct variations for specific countries. The earliest ice cream is thought to have been created in the ancient Persian empire, but the frozen dessert is now consumed on every continent, even in cold environments like Antarctic bases. A much warmer place, Thailand, is responsible for the innovation known as rolled ice cream. Also called stir-fried ice cream, this trend has taken hold in cities like Boston and Los Angeles in recent years. Continue reading “Roll Avenue” →

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Dapper & Stout

With over 100 days with high temperatures over 100 degrees, Phoenix is not the most obvious place for a coffee house with only outdoor seating — unless of course, the establishment is based primarily on a grab-and-go business model. That’s the case with Dapper & Stout, a coffee “house” that is really a counter and patio at the Collier Center in downtown Phoenix. If that setup sounds Spartan, it’s actually somewhat stylish. A long metal table in the shade of the office tower overhead hides just behind the escalators on the development’s northeastern corner. Continue reading “Dapper & Stout” →

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Breakfast Club

Nearly everyone has seen the Breakfast Club, the classic John Hughes movie, but who remembers Breakfast Club the band? Besides Madonna’s brief tenure as the group’s drummer, that Breakfast Club is best known for its one hit, “Right on Track.” Three decades later, there’s a restaurant called Breakfast Club (no “the”) at CityScape and, just like the 1987 hit song, it’s right on track — light rail track, that is. This particular Breakfast Club is just two blocks from the Central / Washington (westbound) and First Avenue / Jefferson (eastbound) light stations. Continue reading “Breakfast Club” →

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Birdhaus Coffeebar

Phoenix has plenty of drive-thrus. Even though adding them has proven controversial in areas within the footprint of the ReinventPHX initiative, preservationists have sometimes fought to save existing ones. With plenty of chains offering coffee to those in cars, it’s refreshing to see a walk-up coffee house. Birdhaus Coffeebar, located on Vernon Street where Midtown meets the Willo historic district, is a business that serves coffee and waffles from a tiny building easily reached on foot, via bicycle, or by taking light rail to Encanto / Central station a half block away. Continue reading “Birdhaus Coffeebar” →

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