Arleta Library Bakery Cafe
Arleta Library Cafe has the best breakfasts in Portland. I know, I’ve said things like this before. But this time I mean it. It really, truly is the best breakfast in Portland. And the wait isn’t very long. And the people that work there are super nice. And the coffee is delicious and bottomless. And the baked goods are top notch. And the only real downside is that it’s off 72nd and Foster, which is a total black hole, cycling or otherwise. I don’t have anything bad to say about this place, really. This is the part where I usually make a snide comment about the clientele or the prices. But I’ve got nothing. Nothing sarcastic. Nothing backhanded.
Arleta Library Bakery Cafe
5513 SE 72nd @ Harold
Portland, OR, 97206
I know. Most boring. Review. Ever.
It sits across the street from Mt. Scott Park, surrounded by a Vietnamese video store, a place that sells toddler-sized T-shirts that say things like “Only 17.5 years until I’m legal!”, and an awful coffeeshop full of dreamcatchers and tchotchy shit where I once saw a flyer for “Green Lawn Care: 420 Friendly Landscaping”. Seriously. I still don’t really know what that flyer means. Do they get landscape high? Or do they smoke you out? Or do they sell you weed, eat your food, and leave after doing a half assed job on your lawn? That’s what I’d do. It’s a total mystery.
Anyway, back to the restaurant. It’s awesome. It’s one of those places that lists a whole bunch of fancy ingredients in the descriptions to you know that everything is going to taste good. Here’s the description of the biscuits and gravy:
Thinly sliced house-roasted pork loin nestled between two savory biscuits and smothered with peppery rosemary sausage gravy; served with Library Fries.
Um… yea. It’s amazing. It’s called Portland’s Best Biscuits n Gravy (with an “n”) and it isn’t misnomer. It’s accurate.
I realize I’m gushing. I’m gushing. I just love it so much that (as Tracy Morgan likes to say) I want to take it out behind the Junior High School and get it pregnant.
+1 on ALC; Breakfast is my favorite meal and this place is my favorite spot, surpassing J & M and Tin Shed. My brother-in-law used to work with the owners, and at his recent wedding, instead of a cake, it was catered by Arleta Library Cafe with LOTS of pies and other baked goodies. For me, it’s a plus that it’s in outer SE (like me) cuz I can nearly always get a table quick.
In second place would be the biscuits & gravy at The Country Cat weekend brunch, which I can walk to.
I’m getting hungry writing about it.
Wow, you are blowing my mind. But I’ve got some additions and pointers for your next literary work.
1. I don’t know how you got to the breakfast shop, but if you road your bicycle you might want to call breakfast “bikefast”. It works on a lot of levels and it would help make your writing more clever sounding. Also if you say it really fast in conversation, I doubt anyone would notice.
2. There is a coffee shop on SE 12th Ave. that advertises having a “discrete staff” on their punch/business cards. You might want to check into this, it seems like they may be in businesses with the oddly advertised 420 friendly landscaping businesses.