Al's- May 13th

How to describe Al's Breakfast? There are a few words that come to mind, and they are all "tiny". Actually, two of them are "delicious". We'd been meaning to head over to Al's for a very long time, but it takes some planning.

Al’s is a diner, and its assets are statistics: a width of 10 square feet, 14 stools, 59 years. The line frequently winds out the door, mostly because of the limited dining space, but also because the patrons know it’s worth the wait. We had put this off until we had a good weekday morning to try it (weekend waits at Al’s are legendary), and Dave’s day off on Wednesday provided the perfect opportunity. Or so we thought: we showed up at 9 a.m. and waited for an hour. We suspect it was because it was the last week of classes at the U; the student behind us had her dad in tow, and they were discussing various logistical plans for heading back home (long line + long wait = unavoidable eavesdropping). They also were eerily similar, and at one point both imitated The Count from Sesame Street. At first it was cute, then we wanted to punch them out of carb-withdrawal rage. Then there were the students ahead of us, who fidgeted like toddlers and often made their way around us to go outside for fresh air. Result? Desire to punch in the face.

Our rage was later soothed by the oh my god so delicious food. Dave ordered some scrambled eggs with ham and mushroom, Lizzie had the walnut blueberry pancakes. The food was great, the coffee was amazing. The staff was very entertaining, assumedly because yelling and making fun of each other makes working in a tiny space bearable. A shaggy server in his early twenties chatted with patrons about a recent finding that only three in 18 study participants could distinguish paté from dog food. (As the waiter pointed out, this either means we’re serving our pets gourmet food, or America eats shitty paté. Perhaps we’ll never know.)

It’s hard to describe the Al’s atmosphere, perhaps because there’s so little space. But it’s crammed with cultural detritus, from yellowed photos to Minnesota State Fair memorabilia (including the recent Obama campaign sign reading “Change On A Stick”). The walls are the color of waffle batter, and we ate to the sounds of A Tribe Called Quest’s People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythms. We love you, breakfast. Stay in touch.