Country Pumpkin Cafe

Marek’s heading out for Breakfast. We tend to capitalize the “B” in Breakfast around here.

Note that he has:

  1. A jacket, because mom told him to.
  2. His favorite fireman boots, which are two sizes too small, but “it’s OK dad, really.”
  3. His t-ball baseball pants, with a big rip in the nethers that I didn’t discover until later in the morning.

pumpkin-00

Here in Tampa it’s a lovely, lovely morning. February, so it’s cold. In the 50s, maybe. On the left is a place I sometimes buy daddy-beverages in quantities of six, and on the right is where Ivo got his first real haircut. In the distance is the city skyline. Just our neighborhood.

pumpkin-01

This morning we visited the Country Pumpkin Cafe at 2620 E Hillsborough Ave in Tampa. Marek appears to be prying himself out of the car. It’s a family car, and I’ll stand by that statement until a medical professional advises me that the car is stunting my children’s growth.

pumpkin-02

Says I to Marek, let’s take a picture together and pretend that we are normal and sane and like each other and all that. He concurred in a most dutiful fashion.

pumpkin-03apumpkin-03bpumpkin-03cpumpkin-03d

And then we got newspapers. Because 1. they’re free and 2. There might be coupons for mom.

pumpkin-04

I’m teaching Marek to read the paper over breakfast, old-style. He’ll look back fondly on these moments and think, wow, dad was a real dinosaur in 2013, with his newspapers made out of paper and all that.

pumpkin-05

The Country Pumpkin has an interesting menu. You can get stuff you expect, and stuff you don’t so much expect.

pumpkin-06

What you may not expect is a “breakfast burger.” Now I can tell you, we’ve been doing this Breakfast Thing for a while. And we’ve never encountered a “breakfast burger” before. Worthy of note.

pumpkin-07

Hot chocolate for Marek. We had a serious discussion about the relative merits of marshmallows in hot chocolate afterwards. Also note the nice display of coffee creamers. Like a little blossom of creamers. I decided early on, 25 years ago, that I would drink coffee black so that I’d always like what I had and not be too worried about things like “we’re out of creamer.”

pumpkin-08

Enormous cutlery on the wall, in case an enormous person walks in and orders the whole thing.

pumpkin-09

“Ma’am, I’ll take a breakfast over here, please.”

pumpkin-10

And politeness works. Bacon first, as is Marek’s method for approaching bacon and eggs. Afterwards he said, “good bacon.” I didn’t get any. Somehow, the Scarfing of the Marek (much like “the running of the bulls”) prevented me from sampling.

pumpkin-11

Here are pancakes that made me stop and ponder. Consider. Mutter, “whoah, interesting.”

pumpkin-12

Not huge, but moderately sized. My hands aren’t exceptionally large, but those fingers can type about a million words a minute. Stand back.

pumpkin-13

It’s the cook-in banana appearance that has me. This is so neat-looking, and tasty too. I really liked these pancakes.

pumpkin-14

Five year old with a knife. What? His mom’s not here. So the boy can have a knife.

pumpkin-15

Syrup on eggs. What, you think I’M going to stop him? We already established that boy has a knife.

pumpkin-16

More newspaper reading. Something about a “Monster Truck Jam” in Tampa tonight. We discussed the cultural, literary, and metaphysical aspects of a “Monster Truck Jam.”

pumpkin-17

Around ten clams for a robust breakfast. Note our new business cards for 2013. This is our third set of business cards since we started. That’s kind of weird.

pumpkin-18

Marek paid the bill. After all, who else would? Ivo? Not here. Didn’t want to come. Pajamas and time with mom, that’s all Ivo wanted this morning.

pumpkin-19

Note the clean and somewhat spartan interior. And sparse of customers, though it did start filling in as we were leaving. I wasn’t a fan of the televisions, which seemed a bit loud and distracting in the empty dining room.

pumpkin-20

On our way home, we went by the stadium. Sure enough, there’s Grave Digger, the “most feared monster truck on earth.”

pumpkin-21

The Country Pumpkin Cafe was a fine experience. The chow was good, especially the banana pancakes. The price was reasonable. The service was good, and even a little sassy. We like sassy. At the end of the morning, we can say that the Country Pumpkin is worth a visit. We’re happy to give “The Pumpkin” a Tampa Bay Breakfast four pancake rating.

one-pancakeone-pancake1one-pancake2one-pancake3

Country Pumpkin Cafe on Urbanspoon

1 thought on “Country Pumpkin Cafe

  1. Sanja

    Andy,
    if there was a “like” button for each one of your sentences I would probably break it from clicking it so much! Love, love to read your breakfast reviews. I am so jealous that Jason will come and see you guys in couple of weeks. Anyway, sending you lots of love.
    Sanja

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *