BREAKFAST ACROSS AMERICA:  A Journey Through America To Discover What There Is To Eat With Your Morning Coffee.

“One should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast” – Robert A. Heinlen

Pictured below is what I have had for breakfast pretty much every morning for the past 20 years. Exceptions were when I was out of town and during the occasional weekend when I was feeling adventurous and would scramble up an egg or two. If I was feeling really bold, I’d get out a couple of slices of American cheese and attempt an omelet.

Obviously I’m in a breakfast rut and it’s time to step up my game. It’s time to eat Breakfast Across America!

This blog’s aim is to chronicle a journey in which my wife and I plan to eat breakfast at a restaurant, diner, or café in every state in America.  Well, not every state. Since the trip will be made by car, Hawaii and Alaska are out. Macadamia nut pancakes and moose sausage will have to wait for another time.  I am including the District of Columbia, although not a state, it should be.

As I contemplated my upcoming retirement from work, I decided it would be fun to combine my love of travel with my love of those “mom and pop” restaurants where the locals ate. Thus, the idea of eating breakfast across America was born.

When I first came up with this cross country cholesterol crusade idea, I thought we would hop in the car and crank out all 49 breakfast stops in about 2 month period. Since that thought, some logic has prevailed. There seemed to be a number of reasons why the idea would have ended up being filed under “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.  First, we have been married for 26 years and thought that being in the car together for almost 15,000 miles in a single trip might make 27 years iffy. Second, I plan on giving each restaurant due diligence in terms of what they have to offer. That means eating a “full breakfast” (a term which I plan on taking literally). Of course, 49 full breakfasts in 60 days have health implications and I don’t mean positive ones. And aren’t all those miles sitting in the car an invitation for literally developing a pain in the rear? Finally, between stuffing our faces, and driving from state to state, there wouldn’t much time left to enjoy a lot of what America has to offer in terms of its natural and unnatural wonders.

So if the digestive tract holds up, the plan is to divide the breakfast tour into five separate regional trips:

Northeast (planned for Summer 2016)
Southeast (planned for Fall 2016)
Southwest (planned for Spring 2017)
Northwest (planned for Fall 2017)
Midwest (planned for Summer 2018)

After much extensive research, breakfast stops have been identified for each state. Some states have two or three options to choose from. My list is by no means set in stone. In fact, it changes quite a bit. Restaurants shut down, fall out of favor, or new places are discovered.  One establishment I thought that looked very promising ended up floating away in a flood but I read it has been rebuilt and is now open for business so it’s back on the list. If you know of a great place for breakfast, please pipe in!

I used Yelp, Trip Advisor, Roadfood, Chowhound, local newspaper reviews, and magazine “best of” lists, as well as individual restaurant t websites to identify my tentative choices. The Food Network put out a list of the best breakfasts in each state http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/photos/50-states-50-breakfasts.html which I’m totally ignoring.

I had three main criteria when choosing where we might go.

1) The restaurant has to be of the “mom and pop” type. No chains, no places with “other locations”, no hotel breakfast rooms with a waffle maker and cereal in tubes, and no bed and breakfasts.

2) The restaurant has to be in a town or city that I have never visited. I have been to all 50 states but there are plenty of places within the states that I have not set foot.  My favorite thing is to go where I have never gone.

3) The restaurant should be geographically “convenient”.  In other words, we don’t want to be driving to the far north of Maine just to have the blueberry pancakes or to Key West FL for a seafood omelet. The less time in the car, the better.

I think we are ready. I have a full tank of gas in the car and a full hunger in my stomach. I have my official Breakfast Across America hat. I have my Lipitor. Let’s go. 

August 14 2016