Essentials Breakfast
8980 N Rodgers Ct SE, Unit MI am not a morning person but some days, I have to get up early for work.
Last Friday I picked up a really early shift. I had to be in the Grand Rapids area by around 4:30 AM. The good news was I’d be done with my shift around noon and able to take a nap before my regular Friday night fall overtime shift began.
I was in the Caledonia area most of the morning and I could have just gone back to Kalamazoo when I was done but I had to make a stop by the main office in Grand Rapids. That was going to take me a couple of hours by the time I drove there, did what I needed to do, and inevitably talk to co-workers I haven’t seen in a while.
I had stopped at the Loves Truck Stop on D Avenue on my way to Grand Rapids at 3:30 in the morning to grab something to eat but they had no hot breakfast yet. I grabbed a Pepsi and a Hostess cupcake which didn’t really do much. By the time I was done with my assignment around 8 AM, I was hungry.
I did a quick Google search to see what was in the area and came up with a pretty good option pretty quickly.
I headed towards Essentials Breakfast on Rodgers Court in Caledonia. The small breakfast and brunch coffee house sits in the Caledonia Crossings shopping center on Cherry Valley Avenue/M-37. The shop just moved to this location replacing the Blue Dragon Restaurant. Their previous location was not too far away on Cherry Valley Avenue SE but this spot gave them more room.
I could have put an order in online but I ended up just going to the shop. It looked like they had a bigger menu in shop than online and I was only a couple of minutes away.
The shop is a counter service coffee shop. The counter is kind of in the middle of the space near the back. There’s a large counter with food laminated menus on the counter. The coffee menus are posted on the walls behind the counter and there are coffee pots and machines to make all those fancy drinks I don’t like.
There is also a large case of baked goods off to one side. I didn’t even look at that before I ordered as I was focused on something hot and savory.
I almost ordered a classic Bacon, Egg, and Cheese sandwich on an Everything Bagel until I noticed something else on the menu I didn’t see at first. It was a burger. I had to order it. I felt bad about making the guy taking my order cancel out everything he just did but once I saw it on the menu, I had to order the Brunch Burger. The cost was just under $13 since I didn’t get anything to drink.
I was told it would be about 5-10 minutes while it was put together. I took a seat in the larger of the two dining rooms right off the main entrance door as you walk in to wait. The room has more of a restaurant feel than a coffee house as there are some booths and four top tables likely left over from this space’s previous life as a Chinese restaurant.
I probably should have just ate there but I got it to go thinking I’d just eat on my way in to the office. When I got outside and opened up the box, I knew that wasn’t going to be possible.
The Brunch Burger is kind of a smaller version of what you’d get in a pub. It starts with an English muffin that is filled with a patty made with both beef and sausage, a fried egg, lettuce, cheddar cheese and a homemade “breakfast sauce.” I knew as soon as I saw this it was going to be a mess so I just stood outside in the parking lot to eat. There was so much going on with this sandwich and it was all so delicious. The English Muffin had a hard time containing everything as there was some juices from the patty mixing with the yolk off the egg plus the sauce on the bun. Keeping it all together so I could get all of the flavors in each bite proved to be a bit challenging but worth it on those times that I could pull it off. I have no doubt the BEC would have been tasty but I’m glad I noticed this on the menu before I was finished checking out.
I didn’t realize it at the time but this sandwich came with home fries. There weren’t a lot of them in the box but there was enough for a decent compliment to the sandwich. The small, cubed potatoes had a nice crispiness to them but were still soft and tender in the middle. No complaints about something I wasn’t even expecting.
Essentials Breakfast is a place I never would have found if I wasn’t already in the area. Even when I worked in Grand Rapids, I wouldn’t have been out in this area at this time in the morning so it was a place that was never on my radar. The sandwich I had was really good and not the typical breakfast sandwich. After I ate, I headed in to the office to pick up some stuff then finished my day back in my office in Kalamazoo. Stopping for breakfast was something I really needed and Essentials was quick, delicious boost that I needed until I could take a nap.
