Nick’s Café
Coffee
Full Stack Pancakes – Real Maple Syrup, Real Butter
Buttermilk Biscuit – Butter
Nick’s Breakfast Sandwich – Toasted Sourdough, Grilled Deli Ham, Scrambled Eggs, Cheddar, Strawberry Jam
Grilled Banana Nut Muffin
Grilled Carrot Muffin – Cream Cheese Icing
Established in 1948 by a man named Nick, the railroads and newly developing Chinatown creating a built-in clientele, Nick’s Café tells a unique story on the back of its menu, and owned since 2009 by boxing manager Rod Davis the old-school spot at 1300 North Spring Street continues to weave a tale in modern times that apparently does not look all that different from when the place opened its doors.
Still wrapped around a U-shaped and a hangout for firefighters as well as cops, the latter a result of decades under the management of LAPD, it is as a model train circulates tracks overhead that guests are offered seating both indoors and outside, a list of daily specials hung over the kitchen in addition to a list of diner staples made the old way and at a fair price.
Decorated in vintage signs and peddling T-shirts featuring General Manager Carlos Morales, “The Solution” a client of Rod’s for several years, it is on Nick’s famous Ham that many plates are built, a generous slice with Eggs for $15.50 “Cash Only” ordered thrice within earshot and freshly cut slices anchoring Nick’s $9.95 Breakfast Sandwich with Toast, Eggs, Cheddar and Strawberry Jelly creating a taste not dissimilar to an un-fried Monte Cristo.
Happy to see Pure Maple Syrup and “Real” Butter available for a small Fee, the fact that both have to be spelled out perhaps the only sign of Nick’s changing since it opened, suffice it to say that Buttermilk Flapjacks are scratch-made, fluffy and no-frills, the same to be said of Muffins available in a variety of flavors that are sliced, buttered and placed inside—down to the grill.
More impressed by Banana Nut than Carrot Cake, the suggested “Cream Cheese Icing” visually absent and thus lacking in sweetness, it was wrapping up with an a la carte Biscuit for two dollars that another surprise was found, the Drop-style exemplified by a buttery crumb that is light but not crumbly and excellent on its own or topped in housemade “Mix-Berry Syrup” with a viscosity more like Jam or Preserves.
www.nickscafela.com
