The Breakfast Club
I like the concept of getting up early and going out for breakfast — as opposed to actually doing it. The problem is that I’m impossibly slow-moving before 8 a.m. On some gray winter mornings, I’ve dragged myself out of bed, made a pot of coffee and then gone straight back to bed without even tasting the java. Sometimes the idea of a hearty breakfast actually nauseates me.
Still, my curiosity occasionally gets the best of me. After weeks of driving past the little sign advertising Sunday-only breakfasts at Berliner Bear Restaurant (7815 Wornall Road), I finally convinced my friends Bob and Ned to go there with me — just not too early. The 42-year-old German restaurant has been serving frühstück for only a couple of months, but the kitchen stays open from 7 a.m. to noon.
We stumbled in a couple of weeks ago and discovered that the dining room was nearly empty. That was disappointing, because the breakfast fare was excellent, the server adorable and the ambience gemutlich. “It’s a very cozy and amiable place,” Ned said.
The Berliner Bear is just as much a no-frills neighborhood joint as it was in the 1960s. There’s been very little updating over the decades. (The 1997 Zagat Guide called it a “dingy little place,” and the 2000 edition eliminated it completely.) Tables are cloaked in checked vinyl coverings, the napkins are paper and the primary décor element is illuminated beer signs.
Still, I hadn’t had such an emotionally satisfying morning meal in a long time. The ten offerings were printed on a single sheet of paper in an ersatz mix of German and English: “Drei (3) fluffy buttermilk pancakes served mit sausage.” Ned raved so much over his Helga’s Breakfast Sandwich — grilled sourdough toast filled with two eggs, three slices of bacon and American and Swiss cheeses — that I insisted on a hunk of it for myself. I dined well on grilled bratwurst, German fried potatoes and buttered toast. Bob gobbled up the Deutsch-Style Breakfast, a scramble of eggs, fried potatoes and cheese. And we all shared Nettie’s German Apple Piankuche, a fluffy flapjack topped with soft sliced apples and served with warm syrup.
Ned was scandalized that the place is smoker-friendly; that just made it truly European in my book. Best of all, it’s cheaper than anything you’d pay for in euros.
