Jo Jo's Place

Not to be confused with Jo Jo's Restaurant to or even J&J's Family Restaurant, Jo Jo's Place was where we decided to stop for Breakfast in Pittsburgh today. 

This place is about a mile or two past the busy shopping area out at Robinson, and if we didn't already know about it, there's not a chance we would have found it by just driving by. Seems there's some renovation plans with the front of the building, compared to what you see on the front of the menu. Perhaps some expansion is in the plans??

From the road

Front getting some TLC? 

The inside decor wasn't much better, the tables are old and strangely arranged, presumably in an attempt to squeeze as much seating in as possible in a small space. Apparently this is a great local favorite, because the tables were filled with families, couples, and bigger groups of folks just getting together for breakfast and bottomless cups of coffee. A sign on the wall said it was voted a reader's choice for some kind of favorite restaurant. So even in its odd location, it seems to have a big following.

The menu is filled with clever names for typical greasy spoon breakfast combos, like "Cassie's Quickie" (1 egg, cheese, and your choice of bacon or sausage on a toasted English muffin, served with a hash brown patty) and a house special "The Mr. Jo Jo" (1 egg, 3 bacon or 2 sausage patties, lettuce tomato, onion, and cheese on a bun, served with a hash brown patty). I was unoriginal and picked "Pappy's French Toast"  described as "3 slices of thick texas toast dipped in our own French Toast batter and grilled to perfection, served with hot syrup, butter and powdered sugar" and Husband had the "Big D Defense" which was 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, home fries, and pancakes.

A lot of food, yes, but it nearly all got eaten! The delectable descriptions absolutely matched the deliciousness of the food - I especially enjoyed the home fries. Not too greasy and just the right amount of onion for breakfast. And the service couldn't have been friendlier. You just got the feeling that people were happy to be here, either as customers or employees. 


Even though this place isn't all that far from the big mall, it really feels like it's off the beaten path. But a better tasting breakfast has yet to be found in this neck of the woods. 

LaBella Bean Coffee House and Eatery

Well, we got a little lost today, and that's how we found ourselves in Bridgeville for what we'll call a "healthy" breakfast.

Bacon Quiche & side salad

So we had a great idea in mind for Saturday breakfast, a place we had been several years ago and really enjoyed. It had been a while, and this restaurant was several miles out of Pittsburgh on the Parkway West. It was a cute little place, out in the middle of nowhere, at one of those intersections with not much else around. We took a couple wrong turns with our fuzzy location memory, but enjoyed a nice country drive in Collier Township (see some pics below.)  When we finally found our intended destination, we were sad to see it had been converted into an Irish pub. Not that there's anything wrong with an Irish pub, of course, but just not for breakfast!

Disappointed, but getting pretty hungry, we headed straight to the closest center of population which happened to be Bridgeville. And in their main street business district we found LaBella Bean Coffee House and Eatery.

Now clearly LaBella Bean does not claim to be a breakfast place, but we're always flexible. So we picked the most breakfasty food on the menu, which was quiche - choice of ham, veggie or bacon. (Of course when we got our food, we laughed to realize the only difference is in the toppings - same quiche, just topped with either ham, bacon or veggies.) Since it's really intended as a brunch menu item, it also came with a tasty side salad with balsamic dressing. (A far cry from our typical greasy-spoon, pancakes & french toast Saturday breakfast!) Husband also ordered a banana mango smoothie to go with a chai tea, and I couldn't resist a sampler of homemade cookies with my walnut flavored green tea.

I really liked the character of the shop. It's rather spacious, with many seating areas, including some over-sized chairs along with tables and some bar-type seating. And being right on the main drag it really has that city-coffee-shop feel.

Here's the peaceful little place we stopped while "lost" this-morning.

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.

Eat'n Park

A true Pittsburgh tradition - Eat'n Park. For non-Pittsburghers, think Denny's with a little extra personality, with locations all over the Western PA area. So it's only natural that one of our Saturday's would include a visit. We had a busy Holiday weekend ahead of us, so we chose the location closest to us, on Banksville Road. As with every Eat'n Park in the city, it is always busy, but efficiently run, so we were seated rather quickly.

Eat'n Park is famous for it's smiley-face cookies.  And for Memorial Day, the typical white-icing has been replaced with red, white and blue. Yummy!

Cookies, and Pies. All kinds of pies are ready to be taken home, or served by the slice, and a colorful wheel of pies tempts you at your table while you hungrily await your food to be served.

But wait! I'm here to tell you about our Breakfast in Pittsburgh, not dessert! ... Or Am I ???

May is Strawberry season, so they say. And in May, Eat'n Park has a special Strawberry menu including Strawberry Banana French Toast. What's not to love? Fruit and my favorite weekend breakfast. Now don't get me wrong, my breakfast was delicious, but was definitely sugar laden. Here's the description:

Strawberry Banana French Toast 
And you thought our Bananas Foster French Toast was good! Try adding strawberries and swapping out the Texas Toast for our homemade grilled strawberry bread. Oh yeah! Served with three pieces of bacon.

It was the grilled strawberry bread. Delicious, but not very nutritious. So dessert for breakfast it was! Husband on the other hand was much more sensible (relatively speaking) with the "Super Griddle Smile" consisting of 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, and potatoes.

Not exactly sure what kind of syrup came on the strawberry sweet bread "French toast" but it was very thick and super duper sweet. The whole thing pretty much melts in your mouth! Oh, and I also enjoyed a really tasty cafe-style mug of Chai tea.

So night or day, if you're in the mood for something sweet, Eat'n Park is the place to be! Oh, and the best part is you never have to wait:

See the smiley cookies in the background :)

Bistro to Go / Bistro Soul

At last a sunny Saturday in Pittsburgh!! We wanted to take full advantage (as the rain returneth tomorrow) so decided to breakfast at Bistro to Go on the Northside. It is located in what they call a "historic" neighborhood on East Ohio Street. It is a very busy "city" street, with metered parking and lots of businesses, including more than one check-cashed-before-payday place. Nevertheless, we knew this place features an adorable outdoor seating area, and a gorgeous 75 degree spring morning was the perfect excuse.

The garden courtyard is nestled between these two sister bistros. My company has had nice lunches catered by Bistro-to-Go and I've been here for lunch and was very pleased to learn they offer Saturday breakfast. On this particular morning, we were the only customers when we arrived at 10am. Odd but also nice to get extra great service. When we entered Bistro-to-Go, we were happily greeted and informed that today's breakfast was setup next-door at the Bistro-Soul as a $10 buffet. So we paid, were provided a cafeteria-style tray, and send outside, through the courtyard, next-door to find a delightful selection including pastries, fruit, bacon, sausage, fabulous baked French toast with pecans, as well as a cook-to-order omelet station.

We were encouraged to go back for more, but just one trip was enough to fill us up. The food was okay, with the French toast being the highlight. But nothing was better than enjoying fresh air and sunshine! Even on a not-so-nice day though, the Bistro(s) would be a cozy place to enjoy a meal. The atmosphere is very intimate and inviting. And their lunch menus look absolutely delicious! 

Michelle's Diner

Michelle's Diner in Allentown is where we picked to breakfast this Saturday morning. And no, not "the" Allentown, PA à la Billy Joel, but the Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Bit of Pittsburgh history/trivia: Allentown is the only neighborhood left in Pittsburgh that still allows the Trolley to run on it's main street (think Mr. Rogers).

I don't want to say that Allentown isn't a "nice" neighborhood, but when Michelle's closes for the day (in the early afternoon) it pulls a big garage-sized door down to cover the entire front door and windows area.  But on this rainy Saturday morning, they were open for business.  Michelle's is different from the typical diner, because the front half is a mini grocery store(??), complete with a deli, frozen foods section, and all kinds of pantry items.

So you walk through all of this to find the most adorable restaurant area with booths and diner-counter seating. Everywhere you look is something pleasing to the eye - Lots of coca-cola collectibles, photos on the wall of classic TV sitcoms (I Love Lucy, Three Stooges...) and of course, Pittsburgh sports. On the counter I spied some classic lunchboxes that I wasn't brave enough to investigate more closely, but they looked really fun nonetheless...

The place was not at all busy, but those who were there were certainly regulars. The waitress was super friendly, and our food came pretty quickly. The menu was not unlike most local diners, several omelet selections, and other egg/meat combos, along with griddle food. 

Husband picked the most unique item called the "Fat Boy Breakfast #1" consisting of 3 eggs, gyro meat, home fries, toast, and 2 pancakes. And I, as per typical, ordered Texas style French toast and bacon. Interestingly, everything was served on disposable plates, but we ate with "real" silverware.

So the food was okay, but the atmosphere was the true highlight. I love places like this where only the locals go - nice to see small businesses making regular people smile.

Dor Stop Restaurant

No, not a misspelling! The Dor Stop Restaurant is an awesome little diner in the Dormont borough and was our choice for Breakfast in Pittsburgh this Saturday.  It is located on the corner of the cutest little street, with trees and shops that reminds me of Main Street USA in the 1950's (except the cars don't have those really big fins on them.)

We arrived really late today (near noon) thanks to a long walk with the dogs on this sunny Saturday, followed by a long nap thanks to some allergy medicine. But no worries, as the Dor Stop serves its amazing breakfast all day.  The place was packed, but we only waited a few minutes to be seated. Obviously this is an extremely popular place - they  proudly display on the wall in the waiting area newspaper clippings of reviews, and seems Guy Fieri stopped by not too long ago for all you Food Network fans. He featured them in "Diners, Drive-ins & Dives".

The owners pride themselves in home cooked freshness, cleverly bragging that their soups have "never seen the inside of a can". And we were in no way disappointed by their breakfast menu. By this time of the day I was super hungry, so I chose the "From the Bone" which was delicious ham with eggs, fresh grated German potato pancakes, applesauce & sour cream and Italian toast. Husband had the special omelet with spinach, feta, and hot sausage with home fries - and a pancake on the side. Not sure what the story was with this pancake - the menu just said it was "mom's recipe" - it was really tasty but not at all light and fluffy like bisquick.  But this Saturday morning the whole thing got eaten, it was that yummy. And I don't know what it is about potato pancakes (I'd never even heard of them before moving to Pittsburgh) but they are definitely one of my favorite foods on earth, and these particularly just melted in my mouth.

We were seated at the back of the restaurant at a small table right next to the kitchen, which is partially open to the dining area.  They really have a smooth system going, serving up lots of people really quickly. Being so close, we could hear all the banter as they cooked up everyones orders and the head cook shouted out instructions to the kitchen helpers. Now it's been a long time since I worked in a restaurant (does McDonald's actually count as a restaurant??) so I'm not really familiar with the jargon, but I'm pretty sure these guys have a language of their own. Unless someone can tell me what "get me 2 sets of scrambled and work me a Betty from the ground up" means?

All in all, we really enjoy the food and atmosphere at Dor Stop. And I must give it a very high recommendation for its classic home cooked food selection.  Really good stuff!