Breakfast at the hardware store

Yes, you’ve heard of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But breakfast at Strasser Hardware?

A free pancake breakfast was only part of the lure at yesterday’s big “Bucket Sale” at the venerable hardware store at 910 Southwest Boulevard. Patrons received a free 5-gallon plastic bucket and were entitled to 25 percent off any merchandise they put inside the bucket on the way to the check-out.  

The pancakes, coffee and juice were served in a big upstairs room — near the housewares, the cleaning supplies and the barbecue grills. Starting at 7 a.m., the customers stood in line for pancakes. “The line goes pretty fast, about six or seven minutes,” said a guy who had a plastic bucket overflowing with stuff.

I was game for a few free flapjacks, but my friend Bob wanted to go to up the street to Ruby’s Dagwood’s Cafe, the greatest breakfast joint left on Southwest Boulevard since Poco’s on the Boulevard closed last month. He sang a different tune when we stepped into the busy restaurant and the only seating was in the smoking section — which is a lot bigger than the cramped non-smoking room.

Smoking is still legal in Rosedale and at Dagwood’s, the black plastic ash trays are almost bigger than the pancakes. The smoke didn’t bother me so much as I ate a cheese omelette and a half-order of biscuits and gravy, but Bob’s eyes started sting and burning as the guy to his left puffed away on an unfiltered Camel. He changed places with me at the counter, because I was sitting next to a man with a portable oxygen unit that was connected to clear plastic tubes in his nostrils.

“I used to smoke,” he said.