We visited Pot Bellies Family Restaurant at 3826 South Himes Avenue on 11 September 2010. This was our first visit, and we found it through the scientific method known in academia as “just drivin’ ’round.”

Inside we found a very bustly place full of pigs. Not the customers or staff, but rather the decor. Pigs everywhere, just like at Skyway Jacks. The wallpaper? Pigs. Those little shelves on the wall on the right? Pigs. Pigs at the front door, pigs on the menu. Pigs!

When we found a seat we immediately started goofin’.

Here’s the menu. Now I’ll share a little secret with you, dear reader. This menu and things like this sort of freak me out. Here’s a pig. He’s presumably cooking pork there in the cooker. He’s quite pleased with himself, and he’s happy to be cooking another pig, perhaps sharing that pig with others and maybe having a little nip himself. It’s perverse to think that an animal would relish in cooking, eating, and sharing others of his own kind.

While we waited we played cars. Note the flying Mater.

We were very lucky today, as our favorite guest reviewer, Mom, joined us. Check out that serious look on her face, like piloting that VW GTSi is the Single Most Important Thing right now. Which it probably was, considering that Marek will run you down if you’re not on your game.

Even our newest TBB member, Ivo, got into the act. When you’re an infant, people just put things on your head. All you can do is endure it.

We had coffee and it was good. Black and bottomless, just the way we like it. Except for Favorite TBB Reviewer Mom, who has hot chocolate because she doesn’t like coffee. Her lone character flaw, in my opinion.

Ivo didn’t have coffee, but he was overrun by spiders. Breakfast spiders everywhere! Lucky for him, the Nephila clavipes is not poisonous.

Here comes breakfast! Mom had the French toast. She would like to report that she did not like it. It was cold and bland.

I offered Ivo the eggs but he wasn’t interested. I found the eggs to be pretty good, though not quite as dry as I usually like them, but good. The bacon was really great. Probably due to the pig fixation.

Marek had pancakes, natch. The pancakes were pretty small, but otherwise were about what you’d expect from a mom-n-pop pancake shop.

When the bill came we weren’t unhappy. Fifteen bucks for all four of us. Granted, Ivo didn’t eat much so he doesn’t really count. So we’ll say that the price, it was right.

Marek paid the bill. Ivo declined to assist. He’s only a month old, so we’ll let him slide this time.

Marek gained a lot of dining room attention for his ability to recognize the register and then wait patiently in line. Nice folks at the next table over were pointing and gesturing to each other with the “oh my goodness, look at that boy” talk. Afterwords I told them that Marek was actually a highly-trained professional.

And of course, when it was his turn he handled the transaction like a pro. Which he is, of course.

Chow was OK on average. Coffee was just the way we like it and had a good conveyor belt delivery. Price was right, folks were exceptionally friendly, and the joint was full of locals. All in all, a fine breakfast. We’re pleased to give Potbellies Family Restaurant a Tampa Bay Breakfasts Four Pancake Rating.

We re-visited the Pine Grove Family Restaurant at 9399 N Florida Ave on 5 September 2010. We’ve been here plenty of times, but not since our last official visit over a year ago.

If Pine Grove looks like it’s been here a while, that’s probably because it has. Based on the cars in the parking lot, it’s a little bit like stepping back in time a couple decades. That’s a good feature for a diner.

Here’s an exciting new model from 1972. I know that sounds a little like I’m making fun, but I always liked a Dodge, and 1972 was a good year for the 318 v8. Not that this Dart is running a v8, I’m just sayin’, a 72 Dodge is a quality vehicle. This’d make a fine stock car, if it weren’t already so pretty.

Pine Grove has a new menu since last we were here. It’s probably the same old menu, but newly printed. We don’t seem to have a picture of the old menu from last year.

I dressed for breakfast. Because yes, I WOULD eat them in the rain, and I WOULD eat them on a train. And on a boat. But NOT with a goat, Marek I Am.

MAREK! Oh My Hat, what’s THAT next to you?

Holy Moly, Dad! WOW, I can’t believe it!

It’s our new breakfast partner, Ivo! (For y’all who haven’t met him personal-like, hat’s EEEEEE-vo, not eye-vo).

Now we’ve got to get new business cards.

As is the custom in our growing breakfast tribe, we had coffee.

Ivo had coffee.

Actually, he didn’t. This photograph is completely posed, unlike all the other crazy things we do. Ivo would OBVIOUSLY need his coffee in a bottle. Duh.

Marek and I played cars. This monster tow-truck is currently known as “Mater,” despite the clear fact that it’s nothing like Mater at all. Ivo just slept. His time is coming.

Here’s breakfast! Marek did his Praying Mantis Kung Fu move and yoinked a bit of bacon before the plate was done spinning.

Now I’m not going to lie to you, these are NOT scrambled eggs. I could have asked to have it fixed, but with a three year old and an infant, plus reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger coming on in 15 minutes, we do not really have time to wait for replacement eggs. Sadly, I don’t really care for over easy eggs. This was a bit of a disappointment. Plus, even Marek didn’t really care for the bacon. The bit he yoinked in such dramatic fashion went uneaten.

The bill weighed in at about eight clams, which isn’t too bad for feeding three hungry boys.

You are seeing correctly, that is an empty coffee cup. A sad sight, indeed.

Marek paid the bill.

Can’t argue with baby feet.

Even with a new baby and a not-the-best-we-ever-did-have morning chow, I still managed to get a bit of love from Marek.

While the price is right and the place is full of our kind of regulars, we just didn’t really love the chow this morning. We give this visit to Pine Grove Family Restaurant a Tampa Bay Breakfasts three pancake rating.

When we were done with breakfast, we started out on an epic journey to show Ivo the ropes of Tampa. First we went to the park and played on the slide. Marek was impressed at how fast Ivo went down.

Then we went to La Tropicana for a jugo (para Marek) y cafe con leche (para mi). Que bueño!

We went to the Ybor Saturday market and bought a present for our favorite TBB Guest Reviewer, Mom. (Not pictured here: Mom, who is home sleeping)

We went to Tampa’s best bookstore, Inkwood Books, to get a birthday present for Baby Zach.

And we went to baby Zach’s birthday party and bounced and bounced and bounced.

All in a day’s work for Marek and Andy (and Ivo, too!)

We visited Munch’s Restaurant at 3920 6th Street South in St. Pete on 21 August 2010. This was our first visit to Munch’s, and we heard about this little gem via a recommendation on the Breakfast Hotline. Munch’s has a very groovy web page at http://www.munchburger.com/.

Right away we were struck with how perfect Munch’s is, in the diner-sense of the word “perfect.” Cozy booths, a great lunch counter. Obvious investment of a lot of time over the years making this a personal and warm place. A bit sublime, really, the atmosphere here.

After all that wistful, nostalgiac, philosophical thinking, we had to play cars.

After all that work, the cars fell asleep. This makes it a challenge to play with them, honestly. But I don’t make the rules here.

Notice anything different about Marek? Did you think that maybe he got new glasses? Or maybe that his old man (that’s me) sent his butt off to the Army …

… Where he got a regulation haircut. Oddly enough, he kept telling me it was my turn. Yeah, like THAT’s gonna happen.

He spent the whole ride home enjoying that fresh, fuzzy feeling on the back of his head. Now that’s a haircut you can set your watch to.

So now that the mystery is cleared up, let’s get back to breakfast. The menu has all kinds of healthy goodness in it, and a heaping pile of not-so-healthy-but-really-goodness too. Check out this little number on the back of the menu.

We debated the various merits, back and forth, on what to drink. After a lot of arguing, we settled on coffee, for a change.

While we waited for morning chow we noticed the walls covered with pictures from the local middle school. These pictures went back decades. Munch’s is truly a place with a deep root in this neighborhood. You just can’t franchise that.

When breakfast came we were both hungry and delighted in equal measures. We actually got two breakfasts rather our usual M.O. of splitting one. I like to say “M.O.” so that my writing gets a Mickey Spillane feeling to it. I’m like Mike “Breakfast” Hammer. Marek had some little pancakes and as much bacon as I’d let him have. It never seems to be enough.

I had the blueberry pancakes and the scrambled eggs. The eggs were quite nice and the blueberry pancakes were something special.

I was really enjoying all of this when I was rudely interrupted during breakfast by a series of phone calls. First, the ketchup starts ringing off the hook.

Then, as soon as I hung up, it was the syrup.

Finally, when the pepper rang I had to get rude and tell them to just stop calling.

Here’s the only flaw we found in our whole breakfast experience. That’s an empty coffee cup on the left. Stayed that way until we flagged down someone.

We’re going to give a free pass on the echoing cavern of the empty cup because when we went to wash up we were treated to this lovely larger-than-life Baywatch girl on the inside door of the men’s latrines.

The bill came. It was high by our usual standards, weighing in at 14 clams, but considering that we had two meals instead of our usual singleton, I think that’s OK. Oh, and that blue superbeetle with the intake stacks and derby numbers, it’s got a blown front axle and bad wheel bearings all around. It spent a few weeks in the bathtub and managed to find its way into the Pancakemobile and onto the breakfast circuit. Another mystery solved.

Marek paid the bill. Don’t you just love that haircut? He looks like a six-year-old, only half-as-tall.

He found the register and handled the transaction like a pro. Which, obviously, he is considering that he’s been doing this for half his life!

When we were leaving I saw this sign. I’m glad that Marek got that haircut and looks so old, otherwise they’d have auctioned his butt off at the next bake sale.

Munch’s being a restaurant AND a sundries place, we had to stop and buy a 15 cent pop on our way out the door.

This was one fine breakfast! We talked about it on the way out the door.

We talked about it while having a tootsie-pop.

We talked about it while we were listening to the brand new Android Lust album that I just got in the mail the day before.

We talked and talked and talked. And we decided that Munch’s is as close to a perfect diner as we’ve found. Great food, lots of locals, been-here-forever and it shows. Prices good, lots of interesting things to keep you coming back. Great food. Oh, and the food was great. I think we’re going to have to break down and pull out our five-pancake rating for the second time in as many months.

We’re pleased to award Munch’s Restaurant and Sundries with a Tampa Bay Breakfasts Five Pancake Rating.

Today we’re giving Pinellas some breakfast love. It’s a long ride, so we cruised across the Gandy listening to our latest local-band find, Have Gun Will Travel. We <3 local music.

We visited The Busy Bee at 7345 49th Street North in Pinellas Park on 14 August 2010. This was our first visit to The Busy Bee, and we liked it as soon as we walked in the door.

Marek and I have always felt that a good diner should have an exposed kitchen. The guy with a Mohawk is just a bonus.

The menu is good, old-fashioned, quality breakfast chow. No big surprises here. Well, except for the “Assorted cold cereals with mild”. We can probably blame some left-brain/right-brain cross-talk there, since the ‘k’ and the ‘d’ are both the middle finger on the keyboard. At least it’s not “cereals with mold.” That would be terrible.

First thing we did was get coffee. This is good morning go-juice! Marek, for the second week in a row, put in our order. “I want pancakes. And dad wants eggs. And coffee. Thank you ma’am.” Kid knows what he wants, and he’s polite, too. Let’s see how long this lasts. I’m thinking until he’s 10, then it’s all down hill.

When was the last time you saw a Hebby Chebby slung that low? And what the foxtrot is that orange car? Some sort of futuristic jet-powered contraption, it seems. Probably a direct descendant of the early Chrysler turbine car. Check out the double-decker bus and the 1986 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck behind Marek’s coffee. Do you think a London bus and an ’86 Chevy pickup have ever been parked next to each other? Not until this moment, breakfast fans. As always, you can count on us for innovation in both the breakfast AND automotive departments.

When breakfast came we were ready. We had an appetite that you can only get from a morning of playing cars. Our first impression was, this is sort of a smallish breakfast. But it turned out to be just a smallish plate; we really did walk out of here with full bellies.

Marek actually gained an audience from several tables as he took care of the syrup.

As our loyal TBB readers may know, Marek can be picky sometimes. But he didn’t hold back from these hotcakes. It helps that I don’t let him eat for 24 hours before we do an official breakfast, just to be sure I can get a good picture of him eating something. Fashion models do the same thing.

Marek’s verdict? The Busy Bee is a knock-out breakfast!

The whole thing set us back under eight clams. NOW we’re talking good value. We’re not disparaging the more expensive places, but an $8 breakfast means we have something left over for the flea market. (That’s the “flohmarkt” for our German readers.)

After Marek woke from his pancake pause, he jumped up to pay the bill.

After wandering around for a while, he finally found someone to take his money. Everyone here treated him like he was their own grandkid. Not only was Marek the youngest kid in the dining area, but I think I was the second youngest.

Marek brought back change, and TWO lollipops!

We had a great visit to The Busy Bee. Great folks, everyone (but us, of course) were by-name regulars getting “the usual.” Really good chow: Eggs were delicious, bacon just right, and the pancakes were exactly what we had in mind. Black and bitter coffee. And lollipops at the end. It’s all good at The Busy Bee!

Thanks Busy Bee! See you next time!

We’re pleased to give The Busy Bee a Tampa Bay Breakfasts Four Pancake Rating.

With all the money we saved at breakfast, we were able to go to The Wagon Wheel!

We got to hold and pet a bird.

And we found this table of cars. 50 cents each, or three for a dollar! (We got three for a dollar, of course!)

Marek picked out two stock cars and I picked out the solar car because I’m a believer in the future of clean energy, and because I was completely impressed that Matchbox made a solar car. We love Matchbox.