{"id":2694,"date":"2011-03-05T07:26:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T11:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=2694"},"modified":"2011-03-05T07:26:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T11:26:59","slug":"central-coffee-shoppe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=2694","title":{"rendered":"Central Coffee Shoppe"},"content":{"rendered":"

We visited the Central Coffee Shoppe at 530 Central Ave in St. Pete<\/a> on 26 February 2011. Today is TBB Fan Christine’s birthday. Happy birthday, Christine! To get there we had to get on the highway. Would you classify those as altostratus and altocumulus clouds<\/a>?<\/p>\n

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Beautiful St. Pete morning. Even the Altocumulus floccus clouds look like they’re ready for pancakes.<\/p>\n

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Ivo said he’d take care of parking. Don’t be too impressed. The meter is free on the weekends. And after reading this, you’ll spend the rest of your day thinking, “öko? Lögisch!”<\/p>\n

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We’re right across the street from The Dome Grill. Marek has his suitcase, just in case he needs some cars or maybe a tape measure.<\/p>\n

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Remember how last year we were at The Dome<\/a>, and Aleshea said to go across the street? Where here we are!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We walked by this snake place. It wasn’t open at 0800 on a Saturday. Bummer!<\/p>\n

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Lucky for us, this little diner next to the snake store was open. What do you think, should we pop in for maybe some pancakes?<\/p>\n

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You, our dear TBB reader, have seen us look wistfully at the stools and counters over the years. One day little Marek will be tall enough to sit there. Today is the day. Marek is big enough to sit at the counter. Not, mind you, big enough to get on or off the stool by himself, but certainly big enough to sit there.<\/p>\n

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The menu has superlatives like eggs and catfish. How can you go wrong?<\/p>\n

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While we didn’t sit with Marek (or, rather, he didn’t sit with us), we did grab the closest table we could. Marek may be a man of the world, but he’s still just a little boy.<\/p>\n

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As you can see, the Central is just a tiny little place. Do you see what’s not tiny? That’s right, baby Ivo is one big little baby. What you can’t see here is the sound of him grunting, trying to get at the food. Uhn, uhn, uhhh!<\/p>\n

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Here’s Marek having his very own breakfast by himself at the counter for the very first time. He’s not phased a bit, as if he does this every day.<\/p>\n

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Breakfast independence over there. And Ivo hasn’t taken his eye off the spoon.<\/p>\n

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Breakfast these days usually includes a bottle of formula. This is a fine breakfast, with some very respectable bacon and eggs. See the little Grabby-McGrab hand in the lower right corner, just waiting for a chance? See how there’s a DMZ perimeter?<\/p>\n

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Marek, by this point, had pretty much forgotten we were there. Ivo, by this point, is starting to look at what the folks behind us are having, hoping maybe they’ll drop something and instead of falling on the floor it will fall into his mouth.<\/p>\n

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Marek’s just one of the guys. He’ll make a fine grouchy old man who sits at the counter every morning and likes his eggs just so<\/em> and always reads the newspaper. If they still have newspapers when he’s an old man.<\/p>\n

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The look on Marek’s face here is, “Daaaad, quit, I’m trying to feed the baby!”<\/p>\n

The look on Ivo’s face is, “I’m not taking my eye off that bottle.”<\/p>\n

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Marek paid the bill. Which was more challenging than you might think in such a small place. They got pretty busy and he had to hunt someone down.<\/p>\n

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The Central is pretty near a perfect little diner. It’s 100% mom-n-pop, it’s small and cozy, the chow is good, reasonably priced, pretty fast, and the people on both sides of the counter are friendly and regular. Almost everyone who walked in was “Hi, Jim” and “Mornin’, Betty.” The folks quite gleefully attended to Marek being at the counter. Little old ladies stopped by my table to tell me what a good job I was doing (little did they know, I’m part of a world-renowned pancake SWAT team). At the end of the day (or the breakfast, in this case), we had really fine time at Central. <\/p>\n

Nicole, thanks for inviting us!<\/p>\n

We’re pleased to give the Central Coffee Shoppe a Tampa Bay Breakfasts four and a half pancake rating.<\/p>\n

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

\"Central<\/a><\/p>\n

We were already in St. Pete, so on the way home we drove by the basin. Marek announced he needed a boat so he could go fishing and catch Nemo and Dorey and Marlin. Should I be disturbed that when my kid watches Finding Nemo he identifies with the diver who catches Nemo instead of the obvious choice of identifying with Nemo himeself?<\/p>\n

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We drove by the Vinoy. Pink hotels on sunny mornings in Florida. There’s nothing like it.<\/p>\n

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After driving around St. Pete to let our pancakes settle, we jumped across the Gandy and stopped at the Redneck Riviera<\/a>. Marek ran off in the sand.<\/p>\n

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Ivo stayed sleeping in the car, a fact which will probably win me a Father of the Year award.<\/p>\n

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It’s just a Florida morning. Hey Vancouver, Stuttgart, Cambridge, New Hampsha, New York, and Michigan, it’s February. Time to go to the beach. <\/p>\n

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We studied different kinds of tracks in the sand. We found birds, dogs, and little boy tracks.<\/p>\n

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When we got home, Ivo and I went back out to vote in the mayoral election. This was Ivo’s first experience with the democratic process. I voted for the visionary underdog (who lost, natch). Ivo voted for lunch.<\/p>\n

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Just a normal day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We visited the Central Coffee Shoppe at 530 Central Ave in St. Pete on 26 February 2011. Today is TBB Fan Christine’s birthday. Happy birthday, Christine! To get there we had to get on the highway. Would you classify those as altostratus and altocumulus clouds? Beautiful St. Pete morning. Even the Altocumulus floccus clouds look […]<\/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-2694","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-Hs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3812,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3812","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":0},"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":3396,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=3396","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":1},"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":2518,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=2518","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":2},"title":"Kopper Kitchen","date":"January 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We're going to breakfast across the bridge into St. Pete. It's a gloomy day today. Maybe it will snow. (Canadian, European, and Northern U.S. TBB fans please note: It ain't gonna snow.) We drove by Haslam's. My mother used to take me here when I was not much older than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/marek-skating.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":576,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":3},"title":"Farmer John\u2019s","date":"October 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Today we're going way out of our territory to have breakfast with an old friend. Going to Brooksville is quite a journey from Tampa! We brought a book for the ride. And we packed provisions. And brother let me tell you, the trip was worth it. We visited Farmer John's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/farmer-andy-marek.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4197,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=4197","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":4},"title":"Trip’s Diner","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We're all glowy with our tiny moment of fame. And now, our real problem is where to go next. This, as you might expect from such newsworthy lads, takes a lot of research. In case you've wondered if the FR-S is a family car, I can assure you it absolutely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":294,"url":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/?p=294","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":5},"title":"Martha\u2019s Place","date":"June 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We visited Martha's Place at 5202 N. Nebraska Avenue on 28 June 2009. This is our second visit to Martha's, the first being at least a year ago when Marek still needed a booster seat. Walking into Martha's is like walking into your own grandmother's house. The setup, decoration, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/marthas-menu.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\/2694","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=2694"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2725,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions\/2725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}