Al's Breakfast

Blueberry buckwheat pancakes or "The Spike?"  This is the question I considered more often than any other while "attending" the University of Minnesota my freshman year.  It was 1987 and I was one of 60,000 students there, at the time the nation's largest student body.  It is probably no surprise then that I survived on that campus just one year, that's two semesters, before "taking my talents" elsewhere. And I do believe I skipped class and dined at Al's at least once a week then.  The Spike, a two-egg cheddar cheese scramble, with garlic and mushrooms, oh so good.  The pancakes, especially the buckwheat blues, I have NEVER had pancakes as good as those.  Al's, I hold you partially responsible for my lack of success at the University of Minnesota!

Al's Breakfast, opened in 1950 to a width of 10 feet and a length of 14 stools, perfectly placed in a neighborhood by the name of Dinkytown.  A friend once told me he walked into Al's one morning and then New York Knick basketball player, Patrick Ewing, all seven feet of him, consumed the back corner of Minneapolis' "narrowest restaurant."  One day I sat at Al's, a couple of stools down from former Viking linebacker, Scott Studwell.  Like bears on a bicycle these guys at Al's.  While waiting to be served it was common practice for my friends and me to inspect the large amount of clutter on the other side of the counter for some sign that Bob Dylan had eaten there.  "Meal books," which allowed regulars to pre-pay for meals, are stacked amongst the knick-knacks, many are very old and have the customer's name written on the cover, but we never did see one for Dylan, who did live just up the street a couple of decades prior. Dylan must have eaten there.

Al's Breakfast in glass, definitely not a bar, but I include it anyway as the third installment in the Dive Bar Series.  As I've mentioned before, sometimes I like to show two pictures, one with the lights on and one back lit only, that's what you see below.  I'm hungry.