Fabulous short-order cooks pumping out breakfasts at Pete’s Breakfast House in Ventura, California

*Pete’s Breakfast House (“All we are saying… is give Pete’s a chance”) is as much about the experience as the food, good as the latter is. The diner-like place—not far from the surfing beach in Ventura, California—is slamming busy on a Saturday morning, but I slide right into a vacant counter seat, one benefit of travelling solo.

“It’s like this every morning,” the guy beside me says as he finishes off a plate of corned beef hash. The unfazed waitresses chat with customers and leisurely take orders. By contrast, the kitchen area beside me is an orchestrated frenzy of movement, a team of cooks steadily plunking steaming plates onto the counter, and one guy feeding the toaster like a San Francisco parking meter.

I get the pancake sandwich—with bacon atop two buttermilk blueberry cakes (they’re always better with blueberries) and, underneath, two over-easy eggs.

Blueberry pancakes over eggs. Yum!

“Do you want your eggs on a separate plate? Some people don’t like them touching,” the waitress offers. No, let’s stack everything together; the wet oozing of elk yolks into thick pancakes actually works surprisingly well.

“You want more coffee?”
“When you’ve got a sec.”
“That’s not going to happen today.”

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Pete’s Breakfast House
7055 East Main Street, Ventura, California
Daily 7 am-2 pm