Breakfast, State College style

Awesome.

Is there any meal more agreeable than breakfast? Is there anything better than a cup of coffee, eggs, and home-fries after a night of heavy drinking and during a morning of hang-over?

Those are rhetorical questions, by the way. This shit ain’t up for debate.

Unlike the other meals in State College, breakfast is almost always an enjoyable restaurant experience. Service is generally top notch, the food is good (it’s pretty tough to fuck up an omelet or eggs over-easy), and there are plenty of places to go.

According to Wikipedia (my go-to source for everything in life), however,

The erosion of breakfast has been an ongoing trend in the West since at least the early 20th century, coinciding with later waking times than when most Westerners had agricultural occupations. Today, hampered by busy morning schedules, many neglect breakfast or skip it entirely. This trend now exists in industrialized nations worldwide, where it is accompanied frequently by replacing local breakfast traditions with modern Western-style foods, often packaged or pre-made.

Unacceptable. I’m not saying I have a full, sumptuous breakfast every day, but I try to, dammit. Breakfast is necessary, and this packaged and pre-made shit doesn’t cut it, either. If you don’t have much time in the morning, I recommend buying or (preferably) finding a significant other who has one of these:

An explosion of taste in just 2 minutes

And despite what you might hear about eggs being dangerous for your health, it’s just not true. This website I found after a 5 second google search proves it.

You may note, at this point, that I equate breakfast with eggs. Well, yes. I’ll let pancakes, waffles, bagels (but ONLY with cream cheese), oatmeal, and sugary cereal count, too, but as for me – there must be some shelled nugget of goodness that came from a chicken's posterior.

Anyway, where does one go in State College to get breakfast? Here are my suggestions – but I’m always open to trying new places, so if anyone has a recommendation, leave it in the comments.

The Waffle Shop (3 locations)

Service: Excellent. Every weekend, these restaurants are packed. The lines stretch outside into the parking lot. And yet the wait is never more than 20 minutes. The waitresses (I’ve never had a waiter. Maybe they’re sexist?) waste no time, but they don’t rush you out the door, either. Coffee is served immediately, orders are taken quickly, and the food comes within 10 minutes – no matter how busy it is.

On the downside, they don’t take credit or check cards. Sometimes the home fries are not made well-done (*highly* recommended), even when I order them that way. Only the downtown location has a smoking section, and even then it’s smoke-free on the weekends. Of course, that’s not necessarily a downer.

Food: Standard breakfast fare, all made well. Prices are not too high, and the weekday specials are pretty good. Superior home-fries, solid omelets, etc.

Facilities: Clean, always stocked. A friend even tells me that, at one time, hangover vomiting went off without a hitch (you know who you are).

Atmosphere: Like an upscale Denny’s or IHOP, although the downtown location is a tad more grungy. Still, it’s always clean. Oh, and there are some weird paintings on the walls - good for sparking high brow, what-the-fuck-is-that? discussions.

Attractiveness of Clientele and Staff: On football weekends, the places are overrun with alumni and family – so not ugly, but not really attractive with the occasional gold-star individual. The downtown location during the week, however, does provide some eye-candy. The staff tends to be youngish (late high-school) but also has your old, grizzled waitress types. They serve well, but only in the restaurant business.

Summary: Rock solid place. My preference is for downtown during the week, the Atherton and Blue Course locations on the weekend. Wish they were open past 3:00pm.

The Corner Room

Service: One small step below excellent. Food comes quickly, as does the coffee, and the staff is obviously veteran.

Food: Nothing spectacular, but nothing bad, either. Home-fries are OK, but nothing close to the Waffle Shop variety. Breakfast wrap is decent. Early Bird special (weekdays, before 11am) is a fantastic deal for the price (2 eggs, home-fries, and toast for 2.25).

Atmosphere: The best word I can think of is comfortable. It’s not upscale, but not dingy. Nothing fancy, and just a bit old-fashioned.

Facilities: Can’t say I’ve ever relieved myself here (nor most places – I’m a camel, and I’m too lazy to leave the table once I’ve sat down), but I would assume they’re fine. The g/f says they’re good, but that it’s annoying to go up stairs to get to them.

Attractiveness of Clientele and Staff: Um, not so high. The hostesses in the morning tend to be female versions of the Wal-Mart greeter dudes – nice, but not something you’d touch that early in the morning, unless you’ve had a few of the Corner Room’s bloody maries!

Summary: Again, rock solid. I prefer the Waffle Shop’s dishes, but the Corner Room has a leg-up on pricing and location (College and Allen, can’t beat it).

Waffles and Cakes

Service: I admit to only having gone here once, but the service was good. There were hardly any other customers that day, though, so I can’t say fo’ real.

Food: Excellent variety, some dishes that don’t appear on the menu of the Waffle Shop or the Corner Room.

Atmosphere: Cool, diner-esque feel. Quirky coffee mugs a bonus. Potential for dirty trucker types is, I fear, high. Still, be a man (or woman) of the people! Mingle! Feel smug while pretending to have a connection with the masses!

Facilities: Again, didn’t use them.

Attractiveness of Clientele and Staff: Some really young ones working here, as I assume it’s at least partially a family establishment. In a few years though, there’s some serious potential.

Summary: I need to go again, but it’s out of the way by quite a bit (go down West College, past the mall). Go here if you want to get away from the crowds and if you tire of the offerings downtown.

Oh, and by the way: If you're in a hurry, Sheetz has amazing egg sandwiches. But then again, what at Sheetz isn’t amazing?

Local Bowling Alley Serves up a Strike.

Being new to State College, I've been a little weary of passing judgement on local businesses too quickly. But then I realized that it's my patriotic duty as a grad student.

I don't know what everyone thinks of bowling, but personally, I like it. It's fun, easy, competitive, and most importantly, it supports binge drinking. I'm not sure how many people have read Andrew Hurley's Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture. I for one have not. But I assume it says great things about bowling alleys. I have been to more than my fair share of bowling alleys, and most of them are at least adequate, if not outstanding.

So, a few weekends ago I headed on out to Northland Bowling to give it a try. I found it met my basic needs quite well. There were lanes. There were pins. There were balls. And there was beer. That made for a good start to the evening.

Service:
We arrived pretty early, about 9, which I would recommend because it did fill up by the end of the evening. We got a lane immediately.

Food:
They have food. I'm sure it's typical overpriced, sub-par bowling alley food, but you shouldn't go to a bowling alley expecting any better.

Facilities:
The facilities were suitable. At least on par with other bowling alleys. I'm sure they weren't spectacular, but I didn't notice anything.

Atmosphere:
If bowling wasn't enough, they did have TV's by the screens with your scores on them, an arcade, pool tables, etc. Standard bowling alley stuff.

Attractiveness of Clientele and Staff:
It's a bowling alley! Nothing against bowling alley employees and typical bowling alley regulars, but they're no Vana White's. It came as a welcomed change however, because this made me one of the more attractive people in the room. Maybe that's a bit optimistic. But come on, everyone should slum it now and then, and what better place to do it than at a bowling alley?

Ok, so basically Northland Bowling is a bowling alley. I like bowling alleys. Therefore, I like Northland Bowling. It's a simple argument.

Links Pub and Cafe - Second Only to Champs Sports Grill in Customer Contempt

The Story: When you walk into a sports bar on a Sunday afternoon during a football game that garners a lot of regional attention and they only have three people running the entire establishment, just leave. Having said that, perhaps we can say that we share some of the blame in our sub-par dining experience at the Links Pub and Café (pun intended)

In defense of Links, the waitress did warn us about ten minutes into our experience that she was the only waitress working and that there would be a lag in service. Fair enough, only she did not warn us that she was the only decent human being among the staff trinity. My beef is not with the waitress, but rather with the State College High School drop-out that was manning the kitchen and the eunuch-manager.

Our food arrived over an hour after we ordered it, as expected, although we did not expect that they would leave my meal out entirely. This omission was pointed out to the person who brought our food from the kitchen, and about five minutes after that our waitress assured us that my food was on its way. About five minutes after that the manger (who we shall call the douche-bag-cock-monster, or DBCM for short) was at our table over another matter and I asked him what the eta on my food was. His response: “You ordered something?” Upon returning from the kitchen, DBCM apologized (and I use that word loosely) and explained that my garden burger was left in the MICROWAVE by accident. Suddenly I forgot how long we had waited for that food, or even that they forgot my food, and focused on the word microwave (okay, I realize that we’re not at Le Cirque, but a microwave? Seriously?).

He said that my garden burger would be out shortly. I sat for about five minutes and wondered why I was about to pay eight dollars for a microwaved garden burger that took over an hour and a half to make and that I had to ask for twice (that’s right, DBCM didn’t even offer to comp it). Fueled by rage, I decided to take the not-so-short walk downtown for food. I told DBCM to cancel my order and I asked him if I could at least get my diet coke for free. He sneered and responded, “Yea, sure, see ya.”

The bottom line: Eating at Links Pub and Cafe is like taking a punch in the asshole... never a good idea.

Service: The waitress should quit and find a better venue for her talents. DBCM and the drop-out, on the other hand, should eat my asshole.

Food: I wouldn’t know, but from what I heard the food was not worth purgatory. Besides, not only do they use a microwave, but they’re not even too ashamed to tell you about it.

Facilities: Besides the waitress, the bathroom was Links’ only redeeming quality. Clean and spacious.

Atmosphere: This place has no character. They do have two large televisions and plenty of small ones, but other than that this place looks like an H&R BLOCK office that was converted into a restaurant.

Attractiveness of Clientele and Staff: It’s hard to say what kind of people frequent this joint given that this was our first experience. If you’re looking to pick up women, don’t bother. Links is an all-around sausage party. Given that an Eagles game was on today, Links was full of rude, smelly , greasy, sleeveless-shirt-wearing missing-links from eastern PA/Jersey.

Champs Sports Grill: Second to no one in customer contempt

Service: Has anybody ever had good service at Champs Sports Grill? Until last weekend, I always thought the shit service was confined to the seating area and the bottle shop, but that the bar was OK. Turns out - not so much.

Four of us showed up for beer, food, and the SMU vs. TCU game (I know, 2 people in State College care about this game. Unfortunately, one of them asked me to go watch the bloodbath with him). We arrive and stand for a few minutes, waiting to be seated. Of course, we, and the 8 to 10 people who were there before us, are ignored. Because, you know, the last thing a fucking restaurant would want to do is seat customers in order to get $$ from them.

Anyway, we already knew this drill, so we seated ourselves at the bar. That’s pretty much all we did, too, because for the next 15 to 20 minutes we were, again, ignored. Great job, Champs Sports Grill: you hired 3 bartenders who, collectively, cannot serve 10 customers. I suggest you put a Sheetz MTO-style system in so we can get our food from the goddamn kitchen ourselves. Or maybe go poach some employees from McDonald’s.

But why was it so empty on a Saturday night, you ask? Because Champs Sports Grill, in their infinite wisdom, decided to host a UFC only fight night. This involved clearing out the bar at 9:30 (and, apparently, stopping service at least an hour earlier) and turning every TV in the place to one channel. This seems like overkill to me, but hey, I don’t watch that stuff. Maybe the experience improves exponentially when you watch dudes get cut on 5 screens at the same time. But if it doesn’t, well, someone’s UFC only night is an idiotic endeavor.

At some point during our wait, I managed to make eye contact with one of the awesome threesome – I’ll point out here that, prior to this, each of them had walked by where we were sitting at least 5 or 6 times without acknowledging our existence. He gave me the “just a minute” nod and walked away. We then waited another 5+ minutes before we were able to flag down one of the other dicks. Then, when my girlfriend asked for one of the beers on their beer list (Blue Moon Pumpkin), he told her she couldn’t have it. Ha ha ha, they don’t actually have that one! Good fucking job, Champs Sports Grill: your menu is wrong, your bartender gives your customers shit, and he doesn’t apologize for not having a beer that’s on your cheap-ass beer list. They're printed on paper - try keeping it up to date next time, and keep the smug condescension and the bad jokes away from the customers, please.

And no, they weren’t just shunning us due to our (truly hideous) B.O. At one point, when one of the bartenders actually stopped to say something to us, we saw a woman at the other side pounding on the bar after, presumably, waiting forever to get served. Pointing this out did no good – the tender neither went to help her nor told one of her worthless colleagues to. Champs Sports Bar sucks.

Food: Who fucking cares, it never comes.

Facilities: Who fucking cares, you never drink so you never piss.

Atmosphere: Who fucking cares.

Attractiveness of Clientele and Staff: Can’t say. They don’t, you know, come by your table.

Champs Sports Grill, welcome to the top of the Shit List: