816 S. Westnedge AvenueJ got the fun of missing work to go to Florida with L.
I get the appointment a week later.
L had a special opportunity Tuesday morning to do something with figure skating that she’s been wanting to do for quite a while. It meant missing about two hours of school and she had just gotten back from a four day trip to Florida.
J couldn’t take anymore time off so I volunteered to go in to work late.
I kept my usual morning routine of getting up way too late then getting B on the bus. I didn’t have enough time to take a nap before I had to pick L up around 10:15, so I went to breakfast.
I still have a small list of newer breakfast places around town that I haven’t been to yet but there’s one longtime Kalamazoo staple that I haven’t been to in years. I needed to be close to the Vine Neighborhood anyway so I went to Crow’s Nest.
Crow’s Nest is such a unique restaurant on South Westnedge Avenue in a historic part of Kalamazoo just south of Vine Street. The restaurant is on the second floor of a two story red brick building with Fourth Coast Cafe taking up the main floor. The restaurant part of this building has been around just over 20 years while the coffee shop has been in this spot for over 30.
The best way to get in to Crow’s Nest is to enter off Westnedge Avenue. You can enter through the side door that takes you in to the cafe from the parking lot but you’ll have to walk through the cafe to get to the same set of stairs that you get to from Westnedge.
The stairs lead straight in to the dining room. There’s a host stand right at the top. The dining room itself isn’t very big. There’s just over a dozen tables between the main part of the dining room and a small added on sunroom. The hostess took me to a table in that upper sun room and followed with water and menus.
It has been a really long time since we’ve eaten at Crow’s Nest. The last time I blogged about it was in 2010 and to be honest, I’m not sure if we’ve eaten there since. It can be hard to get a table on days we can actually go out for breakfast. I know we’ve tried a couple of times but always found a wait. The big difference between this visit and that one in 2010 is smoking is no longer allowed in restaurants and Crow’s Nest/Fourth Coast Cafe had a huge reputation back then of being a smoker’s lounge.
The menu is pretty much what I was expecting for a diner type place. There’s a large breakfast section on one and a large lunch section on the other. I was there at 9:30 AM so I stuck to the breakfast side of the menu.
There was a hot honey chicken and waffles on special but I was more in the mood for a Benedict. They don’t actually have a traditional eggs benedict on the menu but they have some interesting options.
My pick was the Croque Madam benedict. This plate is set up like a traditional Eggs Benedict but fancied up a little. The dish starts with brioche bread made downstairs at Fourth Coast and is topped with ham, Swiss cheese, two medium eggs, and a hollandaise sauce. It’s served with potatoes on the side.
The benedict had all the makings of a traditional benedict but the bread choice made it so much different. The use of the house made brioche was such a unique twist on the classic breakfast staple. It was soft and sweet and soaked up all of the left over hollandaise that was dropping off the top of the eggs. The large piece of bread made a larger platform for the ham and eggs which at least made me feel like I got more than a traditional benedict.
The potatoes were fantastic. The small, cubed potatoes were panned fried until crispy and seasoned with salt and pepper. There was ketchup and hot sauce on the table but these were the kind of potatoes you eat with nothing on them. They were so tasty.
The cost for my breakfast was right around $17 before tip.
Like I mentioned earlier, it’s been years since we’ve been to Crow’s Nest. There has been an ownership change after the original owner died in 2023 and people always like to say things go downhill after that. I wasn’t a regular enough patron to know how much things have changed but this breakfast was really good. Crow’s Nest is always a place that’s in the back of my mind when we start talking about going out for breakfast but it just never makes the cut because we don’t really live close to it. I’m glad I finally found a time to get back there. It had been too long.