Yolks & Berries
505 N. Kinzie AvenueBreakfast is required after a night at Grandma and Papa’s. It’s usually a walk to the gas station to get donuts but my mom had offered to bring the kids to us instead of making J and I going an hour out of our way to pick them up.
We did Christmas with my family in Illinois a couple weeks before actual Christmas. I decided to get a hotel room this year instead of listening to everyone complain about the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements at my parents (they only have one extra bed now). My mom still wanted the kids to sleep over with their cousins on Saturday night so J and I got the hotel room to ourselves. We were staying about a half hour north of my parents so they offered to just bring the kids to us in the morning.
We decided to meet at a breakfast restaurant not too far from I-57 which we would take to start our trip back to Michigan. My niece actually recommended her favorite breakfast place and my mom agreed with her. I wasn’t going to argue because my mom didn’t recommend IHOP like she usually does.
Yolks & Berries is on Kinzie Avenue north of North Street kind of on the edge of the Village Square Shopping Center. The restaurant sits out near Kinzie (which is also US-50). I spent a lot of time at this shopping center as a kid. One of the original Monical’s Pizzas used to be there and there was a department store called K’s Merchandise that we shopped at quite often before the mall was built a few miles north of here. This restaurant has always been sometime of family breakfast joint called VIPS but I had never eaten there before. My parents were always more chain restaurant people growing up so we weren’t as adventurous then as I am now.
Yolks & Berries was created by the same guys that owned VIPS in 2013. It was time to freshen the place up so they closed up shop for five weeks and re-branded, brought in new furniture and gave the place a make over. I have no idea what it looked like before but the look now is pretty clean with bright yellow walls, lots of naturual light and a dark wood floor to tie it all together. There are rows of booths that separate different sections of the dining room and four tops in the rest of the space that can be pushed together to make table sizes for any group.
The restaurant was pretty busy on a Sunday morning and we managed to get their just in time. We had a group of 9 and were surprisingly able to be seated right away. About ten minutes after we were seated, things started to back up at the host station and the wait began.
For this blog post, I’m only going to be writing about what the four of us in our immediate family ate. The rest of my family already thinks I’m weird for taking pictures every time we go out to eat so I don’t usually bother with what they’re doing. My kids and wife are pretty used to it by now so I’ll just stick to their meals.
I did the Traditional Eggs Benedict. I was tempted by the Fiesta Benedict that had chorizo instead of ham but I really, really like a traditional benny. The meal was pretty traditional. Poached eggs on top of Canadian bacon and a toasted English muffin topped with a hollandaise sauce. There was a lot of sauce that just ran everyone once it mixed with the runny yolk of the egg so there was delicious sauce in every bite. The plate came with hash browns that seemed a little undercooked to me. The tops were crispy and delicious but everything underneath was a little bit raw. They actually tasted like they had been kept warm in a steamer or something for a while as parts were ever a little mushy.
J did a Create Your Own Omelette with Cheese and bacon. The omelettes are made with three eggs and it was stuffed full of crispy bacon and melted cheddar cheese. Her plate also came with hash browns. They looked the same as mine but she didn’t make any comment on them so I’m unsure if they were cooked any better or not.
B kept it simple with Mickey Mouse pancakes. I think he meant to order the chocolate chip ones but he asked for the Mickey Mouse. The three pancakes came topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. He conned J into a little syrup…something we don’t normally let him do because he eats with his hands then complains about them getting all sticky. The pancakes were delicious and he ended up eating most of his plate. He got a side of bacon as well but I think one of his cousins and I ended up eating most of it. It was the super crispy bacon he typically likes but he filled up on pancakes I guess.
L won this breakfast by getting the coolest thing on the menu. She ordered the Eskimo Waffle. This Belgian waffle is topped with strawberries, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream then it’s drizzled with chocolate syrup. Yeah, it was probably just an excuse to eat ice cream for breakfast but I’m gonna applaud her for conning us in to this one. The waffle looked amazing and according to L, it tasted amazing as well.
The bill for the nine of us was just under $90 which we all thought had to be wrong but we looked it over several times and it appeared to be right. One of my nieces and my aunt did share a plate so that’s probably why it came out to less than $10/person.
Yolks & Berries is a fantastic breakfast joint in the Kankakee Metro area. Every time I write about post from this area I remind you that restaurants like this didn’t really exist when I was growing up there. A version of this restaurant actually did exist then but my family didn’t eat out like we do now. We were big fans of the Ponderosa across the street and the Arby’s just a little bit south of here with their 5 for $5 deals….oh, and of course, the Monical’s Pizza.
I’m glad we took the time to have this breakfast together before we left town. We don’t get to my parents house very much and it is always fun for me to drive around Kankakee/Bradley/Bourbonnais to see how much it’s changed since I left 20 years ago.
SW Michigan Dining 