We visited Pach’s Place at 2909 Bay to Bay on 25 May 2009. Pach’s has it’s own web site at http://www.pachsplace.com/.
I’m going to be honest from the start on two points:
- I just got off a week-long business trip late last night so I was a bit of a crank for breakfast.
- Neither Marek nor I really cared for Pach’s.
Point #2 is very likely influenced by point #1, so we’re giving Pach’s a correction of a 1/2 pancake rating bonus right from the start.
Pach’s was crowded. We like a bit of hustle and bustle, so that was OK. There’s a lunch counter and a big Andy Warhol pink Monroe print thing on the back wall on the left (obscured in the picture).
We had breakfast. There was no special combo like we usually get, with bacon, eggs, and pancakes for one price. So from the start things seemed a little pricey. I was straight-out excited to find my favorite on the menu: Blueberry pancakes!
So I got some blueberry pancakes and some eggs and bacon and a single normal pancake for Marek, as it turns out he doesn’t care for blueberries in his pancakes. What can I say, he’s still young. The eggs were good, but seemed to have spent some extra duty under the heat lamp. The bacon was generous and salty. The coffee was OK. A bit weak, honestly, though I was coming off of a week of some pretty strong Ministry of Defense coffee so maybe it was just me.
Most folks know that one of the things for which we rate a breakfast is the “unique” factor. The most unique part of this breakfast was the Warhol print thing in the back. The nicest part, and a bit unique in our experiences so far, was that the syrup had obviously been warmed up. That’s a very nice touch!
But we need to stop for a moment, jetlag aside, and discuss the pancakes. By now, half of Hillsborough County knows that We Like Pancakes. We’re not new at this pancake thing, we’re trained Pancake Professionals. The pancakes were … terrible. Both his and mine were sour, a taste that clashed with the sweet syrup. Maybe it’s a special recipe and folks drive from miles around for it, but Marek took one bite and promptly pushed his away. Even I only finished half of mine, and I’ve eaten a fair amount of Army food and can tell myself I’m enjoying a lot of things.
Regardless of the pancake problems, we had a nice enough time. Marek paid the bill. Along the way, one fellow tried to slip his bill to Marek. Marek stopped and looked at him and then kept on truckin’! Everybody got a good laugh!
But there was no lollipop for him. As I mentioned, they were really pretty busy so they played along and let him pay the bill, but there wasn’t really any time for goofing around with a 2-year-old. We’ll cut them some slack, but part of the fun is a little goofing around. It was pretty much all business here, from the time we walked in to the time we walked out.
At the end of the day this is an OK place. The location is nice, right close to the bay. The customers all seemed jovial. The staff were pleasant, in a rushed sort of way. The menu was pretty standard, except for not having our preferred configuration, and there was nothing aside from a nice web site to set this Tampa Bay Breakfast apart from any other breakfast. Given that Marek ended up leaving hungry and needed a snack right away ….
… and given that we were suffering from a bleak worldview, we’re inclined to give Pach’s Place a two pancake rating. We’ll raise that to 2.5 pancakes because we were cranky and that’s hardly the fault of the hard-working folks at Pach’s Place.
