Eating Breakfast with the Chickens at Egg Harbor Cafe

Coffee mugLobster for breakfast? Yep. Lobster Scrambler is on the menu at Egg Harbor Café. So is Joe’s Healthy Scrambler with fresh veggies, no-cholesterol eggs and low-fat cheese, served with fresh fruit and a wheat English muffin. Egg Harbor offers lots of other healthy options, too. What did I order? Meat, meat and more meat—Matt’s Meaty Skillet, loaded with bacon, ham and sausage and topped with melted jack and cheddar cheese. That’s besides the two eggs, potatoes and an English muffin. Sheesh! I’m almost embarrassed to admit it. That was before I went on my much needed calorie-counting kick. I didn’t eat the whole thing, but I’ll tell you what. It sure was yummy.

3 meat skilletI’d seen Egg Harbor restaurants scattered around the Chicago area for some time but had never eaten at one until I was in Rockford. I had assumed they were a national chain. Not so. There are only 18 Egg Harbor Cafes: fourteen in Chicago’s west and north suburbs, one in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and three in the Bucktown area of Atlanta.

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The Rockford restaurant is located in a non-descript strip mall, but the inside is decorated in rustic country a la chicken. Decorative chicken statuary is everywhere in the restaurant. I could almost feel chicken eyes on me as I ate their unborn.

Chicken decorEgg Harbor interiorThe company is family owned, and talking with the managers of the Rockford restaurant, I found out that turnover in management is almost non-existent; the company is that good to work for. The company’s mission statement, “Improving service in every sense,” is based on food, service and atmosphere. Judging from my visit, they live their mission statement. The atmosphere is casual fun, our service was top-notch and the food tasty and plentiful with a range of breakfast options from sweet pancakes to savory Benedicts. Soups, salads and sandwiches are available at lunch.

I’m looking at the Egg Harbor Café menu as I’m writing this, and I see lots of choices that would fit my new eating plan, like a fruit cup and whole wheat pancakes. And then my eyes rest on a new item: Boston Cream Pancakes, layered with vanilla custard and thick dark chocolate sauce. Dark chocolate. If I were eating there right now, I don’t know if my will power would be strong enough to stay away from such a temptation. I do know, however, that the next time I’m in an area of an Egg Harbor Café at breakfast time, I’m going in.

Egg Harbor Café, located at 1603 North Alpine Road in Rockford, Illinois, is open from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. Check the web site for the menu and additional locations.

Disclosure: My visit to Egg Harbor Cafe was hosted by the Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and Egg Harbor Cafe. However, opinions expressed in this post are my own.

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