We re-visited Mom’s Place on 29 May 2010. Our last official visit was way back in June 2009. We haven’t met Mom yet to tell her we like her place, but we do like Mom’s Place.
The front door tells you Mom’s is a support-the-troops place. As a former guy-in-uniform, this is always something nice to see. Sometimes I get asked if I’m still in the service. I always reply yes, yes I am, but standards have reallllly been lowered lately.
Inside is the definition of home-town, mom-n-pop diner comfort. This is a place where people come to feel good and eat good, too. And with the open kitchen back there, there’s no spitting in the grits here, either.
Here’s something we’ve never, ever, not in all the Tampa Bay Breakfasts of all time, ever done. Race cars.
People have been stopping us on the street and asking questions. They say, Marek seems to be all about the race cars, but what does he really know about racing? It turns out, quite a bit. He’s a regular at the Sunshine Drag Strip.
Mom’s menu is full of “international omelets” that will take 30 minutes to sort through. Lucky for us, we know what we want. Betcha can’t guess … pancakes! (Oh, and also some bacon.)
A place like Mom’s, you’re almost guaranteed to get good go-juice. Marek likes his bold, bitter, black, and burning-hot.
And so do I.
I try to educate Marek about the truly important things in life. As our TBB fans know, we talk about literature, politics, military issues, family, good food, racing, foreign policy. But lately I’ve been feeling that there’s a real void. Marek is growing up not knowing anything about Chuck Norris. I started out with a Google Search.
Marek’s going to have a little brother. So I used this opportunity to teach him about the C-Section. The “C-section” is named after Chuck Norris, for when he roundhouse kicked himself through his mother’s stomach when he was born.
Just as we were getting deep into Chuck Lore, some pancakes arrived. Here’s a good spread. Great eggs, magical disappearing bacon, and some good, solid, all-American pancakes.
A new thing for us is Marek as syrup-handler. He’s got it goin’ on with that action.
When we were done we looked at the bill. We’ve been pretty consistently hitting the $11 mark for breakfast these days. Not bad for two growing boys (Marek’s growing in the upward direction, but not me).
When we paid the bill, Marek took a moment to do what he does best these days. You guessed it, running amok.
Then this lovely lady says she has some lolllllleeee pops.
As you can see here, I got one too. Marek took two and handed one to me, “this one’s for you, dad.” Seriously, that’s what he said. In 6 more months it will be followed by, “and can I have some money,” but for now it’s just the sweetest thing ever.
We discussed Mom’s Place on the way home. Good, solid chow here. Eggs, bacon, pancakes. Never saw the bottom of the coffee cups. Nice folks. Full of locals and regulars. Mom’s is just Our Kinda Place.
Last time we were here we gave Mom’s a 3.5 rating because the pancakes weren’t so great. But this time around we had a very fine experience. We’re going to bump Mom’s up to a very respectable Tampa Bay Breakfasts four and a half pancake rating.