J&J's Family Restaurant & Catering

Another beautiful Saturday in Pittsburgh! Somehow our morning was so busy with errands and appointments, we weren't able to head off to breakfast until nearly NOON! So we decided to stay close to home to somewhere we Know serves "Breakfast Anytime" - and there is no closer place to where we live than J&J's Family Restaurant & Catering which is a really long name for a small little one room restaurant on the corner of Virginia & Shiloh on Mt. Washington (long, not unlike this sentence). It is a cute little place with all kinds of pictures, photos and knick-knacks hanging on the walls. And it's within walking distance of our house.

As the name suggests, it is run by some sort of family, whose photos are proudly displayed on the front of the menu, hanging on the walls of the restaurant, and even posted on their webiste. There aren't too many tables, and the place wasn't really busy. A good sign, or so we thought. Unfortunately, although we sat down at noon, we weren't served for nearly 45 minutes after we ordered.  Zoiks! (More on that later...)

waiting....

The breakfast menu here is very typical of Pittsburgh, with nothing too exciting to recommend itself. So husband and I stuck close to what is familiar, being so hungry by this time of day. He picked the from the menu the "Big Country" consisting of 3 pancakes, 3 eggs, sausage patties, homefries & toast. This pretty much covered everything on the menu and certainly would have been enough for the two of us! But I had to have my French toast...

The Italian toast came several minutes after the rest of the food, but it was absolutely delicious, melt in your mouth, all kinds of goodness. Yum, yum.

So here comes my mini-rant about the timing of the meal...

Since this place is so close to our house, we used to come here all the time - often weekly. Until one morning the service was so incredibly slow, we realized it just wasn't compatible with our typical busy weekend plans. The food is really good, don't get me wrong. But apparently "these things take time." And it seems we aren't the first ones to think so. I found this telling statement posted on their website :

I'm a big fan of shopping locally, and I appreciate that they acknowledge the fact that they aren't at all a fast food restaurant. So I guess the next time we visit, I'll remind myself that this is a "family" restaurant - not so much because it is a place to Bring your family, (though that of course is welcome), and not because you Feel like family when you are there, (though certainly most folks do), but it is Run by a family. So it is like being invited to another family's place for a home cooked meal. No assembly lines, everything's just made one plate at a time, as the cook pleases. Probably as quickly as I myself might cook breakfast for people walking in and out of my kitchen. But then again, I'm not a restaurant owner... and I'm sure many are happy about that!

I have no doubt we'll return again. Good food and good location will do it every time.