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A couple months ago, I craved pancakes.
Although I mainly live in Scottsdale, it's only within the past few months that I've been home long enough to actually have enough time to try new places and not just places that my parents recommended or visit places where my friends work at or own.
Now I see how fortunate I was to grow up having parents that value great food and great eating experiences. Mostly, because, no matter where we were, even when we traveled, they did all the research to find extremely great places to eat. Research used to mean referring to bulky travel guides and book versions of Zagats for each city. Now research is pulling out an iPhone, jumping on the Internet, and opening up Yelp.
After I exhausted all the pancake places I knew, (IHOP, Wildflower Bread Company, Market Café at The Buttes, Morning Squeeze, Snooze AM, Butters and The Good Egg), using Yelp, I found incredible places (and increased from pancakes to crêpes) like the Crêpe Bar, T.G Eggington's, and Iss' Magic Mixes Oatmeal Café. I also found a couple places I didn't like so much. And today I found Crackers & Co.
CRACKERS & CO.
Crackers & Co. opened their first location in 1984.
Their website says that their menu was founded on the European heritage of the owner and has a warm, rural Tuscan ambience.
Currently, there are three locations:
~Eastgate (Country Club & US60)
~Mountain View (Greenfield & Brown)
~Tempe (Priest & Elliot)
THE STORY
This morning, I ate at the Tempe location.
When I walked in, I should have walked back out. Honestly, not because of anything wrong with Crackers & Co. but because it's just not a good fit for me.
The hostess was very sweet. I asked to sit at the bar and she helped me to my seat. There are two main dining areas and the place was very busy. The ambience included a lot of plastic vines and trees with vinyl table cloths, which was more like a nursing home than "warm, rural Tuscan." There was a lot of activity at the bar for the take out and the radio was blaring local commercials and then Miley Cyrus. The bartender, Bill, was very nice and efficient. I ordered berry blintzes and a mimosa.
The $5 mimosa wasn't that great. It wasn't horrible either. That's when I started wondering what makes a good mimosa: Is it the fresh squeezed orange juice and quality champagne, or at least one or the other? This had neither. The orange juice was heavy and thick, cafeteria style. The champagne was hardly noticeable, but I was happy it was there. I ordered another.
The blintzes were at a disadvantage even before they came out, because I was raised by a Jewish grandmother who made THE best cheese blintzes. I asked Bartender Bill if the blueberry topping was compote. He said they purée the berries in back, so I said ok. The blintzes arrived covered in thick berry compote. Now there are positive and negative ways of looking at this. One positive way, is that they have extremely generous servings. Although I scraped it all off, I'm going to stick with that way of looking at it. After that, I ate them all and basically cleaned the plate, so that says something.
The menu was huge and there were also daily specials, which include many skillets, omelettes, pancakes, French toast, Crêpes, waffles, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, eggs Benedict and biscuits and gravy. (In fact, I saw jalapeño biscuits and gravy which sounded tasty).
CONCLUSION
In summary, the staff was very nice, the food is good here if this is your favorite style of food, and you will be very happy here if you enjoy this type of environment.
3/5 RECOMMEND
OF NOTE
*Crackers & Co. has take away, catering and gift cards. There is plenty of parking.
*Hours: 7am - 2:30pm Daily
*For more information:
crackersandcompanycafe.com
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