{"id":1132,"date":"2010-02-13T15:24:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-13T19:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2010-12-19T20:37:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T00:37:00","slug":"tick-tock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=1132","title":{"rendered":"Tick Tock"},"content":{"rendered":"

We got in the car. Marek was still dreaming. “Mmmmm. Pancakes, Dad. I need pancakes.” Okie-dokie, bubba!<\/p>\n

\"tick-marek-dreaming\"<\/p>\n

We visited the Tick Tock restaurant at 8123 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg<\/a> on 13 February 2010. This was our first visit to the Tick Tock.<\/p>\n

\"tick-outside\"<\/p>\n

We liked it extra good before we even went in. Check out those motorcycles! Oh, and also, the tagline, “Tick Tock, It’s Time to Eat!” Now really, how can this place not be great?<\/p>\n

\"tick-motorcycles\"<\/p>\n

Inside was very clean and orderly. New-ish looking, even. We were greeted by several folks and it was just all-round friendly. A nice first impression!<\/p>\n

\"tick-inside\"<\/p>\n

So the whole way over, Marek is saying, oh dad, don’t you just love cars? I say why yes, Marek, I DO love cars. But what about … RACE cars? Yes, dad, I love race cars too. I don’t know where he got it, but the little nugget pulls out this month’s Hot Rod magazine. Notice that he’s got a page open with hot cars and a hot girl; like most guys, he pretty much had to flip a coin on which one to look at, and he settled on the cars.<\/p>\n

\"tick-magazine2\"<\/p>\n

Looking at that magazine really got us in the mood. For RACING! Whooo! Go Blue!<\/p>\n

\"tick-cars\"<\/p>\n

Between heats, we looked at the menu. This says blueberry pancakes, but what it really is is pancakes with blueberry gunk on the top. I just don’t like that at all. So I got the regular pancakes. Had I known how large they’d be I’d have not gotten Marek his own, but I was still remembering our small pancake experiences from the last few weeks. Better having too many pancakes than too few, I always say!<\/p>\n

\"tick-menu\"<\/p>\n

The Marek, who is still waking up, says hey old timer, you going to come off of any of that coffee or am I going to have to teach you a lesson? Duly chastised, I came off of some of that coffee and we both enjoyed it. We even said “cheers!”<\/p>\n

\"tick-marek-coffee2\"<\/p>\n

Marek has been off the coffee for a few months, as our dedicated followers may have noticed. But boy, did he like it today! Deelish! And let me tell you something, this coffee cup was never more than half empty. The Tick Tock has a serious coffee pipeline going on, with every gal working in there doing a sweep of every table every five minutes. This was awesome!<\/p>\n

\"tick-marek-coffee3\"<\/p>\n

Here comes …. breakfast! Check out this ginormous “Mickey Pancake,” for which I’m hoping Disney does not actually get any royalties for the name. Marek “Gimme some Bacon” promptly did his slice-of-bacon-grab. Steve probably would not have cared for this bacon, but we’ve had much worse in our travels.<\/p>\n

\"tick-breakfast1\"<\/p>\n

And look at this heap of pancakes. Holy moly, if I’d known this I’d have skipped supper last night! These were seriously good pancakes and I was very sad that I’d not brought an appetite appropriate for their demise. First Marek beats me in arm wrestling two out of three, then these pancakes put me in the hurt station. Top-notch, in the same category as The Dome’s pancakes, I’d have to say. The eggs, on the other hand, were pretty good but somehow were runny inside and I didn’t care for that at all.<\/p>\n

\"tick-breakfast2\"<\/p>\n

Nothing stopped Marek. He was cheerfully humming Mr. Plow<\/a> as he dug in.<\/p>\n

\"tick-breakfast4\"<\/p>\n

When we were done we played more cars, read more magazines, and waited for the bill. Not the cheapest we’ve ever had, but not terrible for two breakfasts for just over 11 clams.<\/p>\n

\"tick-bill\"<\/p>\n

Marek paid the bill. Which was a bit of drama as he kept getting lost, dropping his money, and all around goofing off. Come on, kid, act your age! Oh wait, you’re two. OK, you’re doing pretty good.<\/p>\n

\"tick-marek-pays1\"<\/p>\n

While Marek was off trying to pay all the wrong people, I was busy stashing our cards in strategic locations. We’re on our second box of business cards and entering our second year of breakfasts. That’s a lot of pancakes, brother!<\/p>\n

\"tick-cards\"<\/p>\n

On our way out the door we had a frank, serious discussion about the Tick Tock. Did you love it, Marek? Yes, dad. Do you love your dad, Marek? Yes dad. Good, ’cause I love you, too. Now give your old man a kiss. OK, Dad. But only if we can go to the drag strip after this.<\/p>\n

\"tick-love\"<\/p>\n

We rolled out of here full as can be. Folks were supremely friendly. The coffee was bottomless and bitter. The price was fine, but not great. Overall it’s just a good, solid breakfast experience that we’re looking forward to visiting again. We’re pleased to give this Tampa Bay Breakfast a four pancake rating.<\/p>\n

\"one-pancake\"\"one-pancake1\"\"one-pancake2\"\"one-pancake3\"<\/p>\n

When we left we went cruising to the Sunshine Drag Strip to check it out. On the road to the track were these cool old jalopies.<\/p>\n

\"tick-neat-cars\"<\/p>\n

And we were able to pull up onto the strip to take a picture. See Marek tucked in the back?<\/p>\n

\"tick-dragstrip\"<\/p>\n

The whole ride home (it’s a long way from our house to St. Pete), Marek kept saying, “look at me, daddy, LOOK AT ME!” Whudda goofball.<\/p>\n

\"tick-look-at-me\"<\/p>\n

Before we got home, he asked if we had any apples. Sure enough, I did. That apple is the same size as Marek’s head! Look at that! What a great morning for little Marek!<\/p>\n

\"tick-apple1\" <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We got in the car. Marek was still dreaming. “Mmmmm. Pancakes, Dad. I need pancakes.” Okie-dokie, bubba! We visited the Tick Tock restaurant at 8123 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg on 13 February 2010. This was our first visit to the Tick Tock. We liked it extra good before we even went in. Check out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11,3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american","category-breakfasts","category-pinellas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p30Aox-ig","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5420,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=5420","url_meta":{"origin":1132,"position":0},"title":"2013 Breakfasts in Review","date":"December 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We're in our fifth year of pancakes in the Tampa Bay Area. We could have never imagined letting mom sleep late on the weekends would lead to this. It's been a good year for breakfast. This year we've done 26 reviews, 18 of which were first-time visits. Of the 26,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Administrative"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3089,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3089","url_meta":{"origin":1132,"position":1},"title":"Safety Harbor Grill","date":"July 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It's 0800 on 3 July. We're on Breakfast Patrol. Marek's got our flank. Ivo brought his appetite. Marek took this picture. The focus is the fault of the phone camera, but the composition isn't bad. He's capturing the palm trees and the blue skies conjure up carefree good times, while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/safety-02-sunnyday.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3396,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3396","url_meta":{"origin":1132,"position":2},"title":"The St. Pete Diner","date":"November 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We're spinning Mudcrutch this fine Fall morning. Pink taxi in Tampa. Take THAT, Dayton, Ohio! Marek is set up in back and looks like a teenager, almost. It's frightening. We visited The St. Pete Diner at 1101 34th street N in St. Pete on 6 November 2011. TBB Fan Mike\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/stp-19-trex.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3812,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3812","url_meta":{"origin":1132,"position":3},"title":"Country Boy Soul Food","date":"July 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Today we were going to go to the Parrot Cafe on Grand Central in St. Pete. For all the good write-ups I've been seeing about the Parrot, it surely was closed this morning. So we ended up at Country Boy. Country Boy is actually hidden, tucked in on a side\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/soul-13.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1037,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=1037","url_meta":{"origin":1132,"position":4},"title":"The Olympic Cafe","date":"January 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you ever noticed how breakfast is everywhere? North Tampa. South Tampa. St. Pete. Levy County. You can even get a decent breakfast in the Industrial Park. We visited the Olympic Cafe at 5011 W. Hillsborough Avenue on 23 January 2010. This was our first visit to the Olympic Cafe.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Breakfasts"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/olympic-spiders2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2983,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=2983","url_meta":{"origin":1132,"position":5},"title":"Kissin’ Cousins","date":"May 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If you had that little monster staring at you all the time, you'd drive fast too! Today it's just me and Ivo. We're applying lessons learned from our study of asymmetrical conflict and doing our first ever split-ops breakfast. Marek and Favorite Guest Reviewer Mom are over on Clearwater Beach\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/cousins-21-maserati.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2338,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions\/2338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}