Colonial Cafe, Aurora

Colonial Cafe
1961 West Galena
Aurora, IL 60506

September 18, 2008



No, that sign isn't fake. One-cent pancakes? Believe it! Colonial has run this promotion before to celebrate some of their locations' anniversaries in 2007. It was a little unclear what the cause was this time around at their Aurora location, but I didn't pause to ask our server. We were too hungry and they were too busy.

Of course, there's always a catch. You can't take advantage of the one-cent pancake offer unless you buy a beverage, so don't expect to walk out with a bill under ten cents. We bought some coffee and juice, and what the heck, some bacon too! It's easy to agree to such suggestions when your main course is free, even though it helps bring an almost-free breakfast up in price to a mere great deal instead. I'm sure that's part of their plan, and probably why they're doing it at more locations in the coming months.



Ayinsan here.

Not much to say about the pancakes themselves. They're good, but not mind-blowing, comparable to pancakes you might get at IHOP or the like. But hey, they were a penny, so I'm not complaining. They even came with their own little cup of syrup, though our waitress also brought us a traditional glass syrup container, so we weren't limited to the cup.

Colonial's always good for some reliable comfort food. Hopefully in the future we'll get a chance to try some of their more adventurous breakfast items, but you can't go wrong with buttermilk pancakes.

Southern Belle's, Oswego

Southern Belle's
1158 Douglas Rd
Oswego, IL 60543

September 9, 2008



Do you find the stylish and postmodern motifs of today's pancake houses a little too cold and impersonal? Do you ever wish you could go back to a simpler time, when men and women would start their day with a hearty breakfast before working in the fields? When giant chickens, taller than a fence, roamed our farms and laid a half-dozen eggs a day? When Weiner-mobiles towed covered wagons full of fresh vegetables down to the farmer's market at Venice Beach? If so, Southern Belle's might be the restaurant for you.

It may not have a fireplace or a porch full of rocking chairs like Cracker Barrel, but Southern Belle's adds their own touches to evoke the charm its namesake implies. If the waitresses working during our visit were any indication, all the servers wear overalls as part of their uniform. Whether this is done to enhance the restaurant's working class ethic, or to evoke pleasant nostalgia of the Depression-era Dust Bowl, I'm not sure. I couldn't find the men's or the women's restrooms, just ones meant for "dudes" and "belles," so if you fall in either one of those categories, you're in luck.

You'll find a good selection of pancakes on their menu. I ordered the strawberry pancakes, which looked like an ordinarily-sized serving but proved extremely filling. I couldn't even clean my plate! Not sure how I felt about the strawberry topping they generously applied, though. I'd have been just fine with plain strawberries and nothing more.



Halfway through our meal I finally gave in and ordered some coffee. This was getting close to 1:00 in the afternoon, long past the breakfast hours and any kind of lunchtime rush they may have had. In fact, there were only two or three other tables with customers at the time, besides the two of us. I know this situation really isn't condusive to a busy and fresh coffeepot, so I'm not going to hold it against them or anything. That said, my coffee wasn't very good. Bitter, maybe a little burned? I should have trusted my instincts before ordering any. Aside from our recent trip to Mapleberry, lately I haven't been able to find a good cup of coffee almost anywhere.



Ayinsan here. Southern Belle's won fifth place in "best breakfast overall" in a newspaper-run contest and first place for "best new breakfast," but the sign in the window simply says, "Thank you for voting us best restaurant." Kind of misleading, but nonetheless, Southern Belle's is worth visiting.

Probably the first thing you'll notice upon entering is the decor. Lots of objects hanging from the ceiling, including a Radio Flyer wagon, an Oscar-Meyer Weiner-mobile, and a giant box of Frosted Flakes. Why these particular items? One can only wonder.



I got the banana crepes, which are always a bit of a gamble. Sometimes they're great, sometimes there's just not much to them, depending on where you go. I asked the waitress what else was in the crepes, aside from bananas. She went in the kitchen to inquire and told me they were filled with a "sweet mixture." That didn't clarify it much, but I went ahead and ordered the crepes. They were pretty good, though if there really was a "sweet mixture" inside them, I couldn't detect it. It seemed to be just bananas...but despite that, they were quite filling. The bananas were fresh (not overripe or yucky and bruised) and the crepe shells were chewy and sweet.