Dottie's True Blue Cafe

I’m going to take a break from the regularly scheduled programming, and write a few reviews from my weekend excursion to San Francisco. I think that many who read this blog are either San Diegans or tourists coming to California, and a few restaurant reviews of the Bay Area might be a nice change. At any rate, it was a dining extravaganza, as it always is when one vacations, so I thought that I should document all of the good food that I had in the other half of California!


After hearing all of the raves about Dottie’s True Blue Café (and the fact that it was less than three blocks from our hotel in SF), we decided to check out it out for breakfast. What we weren’t expecting was the huge line for breakfast! Our stomachs were revolting, so we decided to go somewhere else and try again another day. And we did. The next morning, we woke up earlier, decided to try again, and were met WITH ANOTHER LONG LINE. However, we decided to tough it out, and the line moved relatively fast – it was about a 30-minute wait until we were cozily seated in the small cafe, a smiling picture of Josephine Baker looking down on us.

After realizing that the portions would be huge, we decided to split their “Open Road” meal, which included two eggs any style, toast, two pancakes, bacon, and an orange juice. We also ordered an English muffin on the side, because, well, toast and pancakes just isn’t carb-y enough for us.

Our meal was delivered surprisingly fast considering the packed house! The eggs were cooked perfectly, and the bacon was meaty and plentiful (four big strips!). The star of the breakfast was the delicious pancakes. Whole wheat, light as air, and seasoned with a yummy combination of ginger and cinnamon, with a taste of brown sugar. The pancakes might have been the best pancakes that I’ve had in my life, and I’m a pancake connoisseur.

The service was great as well. There was never a point that our coffees were less than full (and the coffee was fresh and tasty!), and the server was polite and efficient. The value of the meal was amazing -- less than $13 for all of that food, not including the muffin and coffees, and considering the quality, was a great deal. All in all, this place was worth the wait. I would definitely return, especially for those awesome pancakes.