Beachwood Cafe - A Nice Place for a Yummy Breakfast (and Horses)

This morning, I ended up having to kill a little time before meeting someone and found myself in my old 'hood, at The Beachwood Cafe. The cafe used to be a diner, and it was kind of worn out and done in and I loved it. Dark wood, flies that seemed like they knew your name, that sort of thing. So when this new, cheerful, CLEAN restaurant took over, it was a little jarring for someone like myself.

Yet enough time has passed and now I can say while I love the old, I welcome the new; especially when the first thing you see, parked outside the door, are horses.

Inside the memories of the old Beachwood diner seem to have finally faded. I don't fully remember it any longer. I do remember some of the staff and miss them. But the new staff could not have been nicer and I wonder if my waitress worked at the old one as well. Either way, she was fantastic. And the truth is drab and depressing is no longer my game. As much as I like that old greasy spoon feel, I'm publicly going on record to say I like clean stuff, nice people, good food and pretty walls. The Beachwood has all of that.

Yellow and blue are the predominant colors and the kitsch, homey wallpaper and unusual photos of dogs above the tables add light, energy and life. Even the floors are blue and yellow. I was wondering if this was possibly an alma mater color combo from the owner's university years past. (All hail The University of Michigan).

Regardless of how cute everything was...

I mean come on...

The food was delicious. I sometimes meet my little friend, Nancy, here for a pow-wow and vent-fest. She normally gets the tofu scramble while I go for the Nichols, a scramble comprising of spinach, onion, bacon -- guess who weighs less in this friendship?

Nichols Scramble, 11 bucks, deelish

Yet regardless of the fact maybe mine has a higher calorie count, whatever you get here is fresh and they care about their food sources. They make it very clear if you're eating chicken or bacon or a burger, it's hormone-free, grain-free... or put another way, it roamed, it laughed with its friends, it had a real life. They care where it came from, that it tastes good and that it won't mess with your health. And if you're a Vegan or Veggie they have lots of choices. Because it's hard to eat meat when you see this guy out your window...

But not that hard if you really like meat.

Anyway, as sweet, as Martha Stewart-Would-Be-Proud-ish as this spot is, it's still, at the end of the day, on some level, just a diner...

Beachwood Cafe Kitchen

And while yes, you can have soy or almond milk in your coffee, at every table you can still have this...

Leading me to say, I don't really miss those damn flies.

 

Beachwood Cafe is at 2695 Beachwood Canyon, LA, CA 90068. Open Tuesday thru Saturday, 8-10p. Sunday 8-3pm. They also now deliver. You can park in the lot there or on the street. Information about their design can be found here: http://bestorarchitecture.com. 

As for the horses, my guess is they were from Sunset Ranch. At the top of Beachwood Canyon Sunset's where you can rent horses for about $40 per hour. Or maybe those three people who rode their horses just have horses instead of cars and that's how they roll and if so, that is very cool and awesome.