Brunch in Jersey City has developed a ritual and the ritual is standing outside. You put your name down, you get a text in an hour and ten, you walk in a circle around the block pretending this is a fun part of the weekend. Then you sit, and someone is already waiting for your table before the food lands.
We do not run brunch that way. Partly on principle, mostly because it is a bad way to eat.
No list, no ninety-minute wait
Saturday and Sunday we open at 8:00 AM and serve brunch through to 3:00 PM. No reservation, no last seating, no list. If you show up at 11 and it is busy, it is busy — but it is a wait measured in minutes, not in podcast episodes.
Early is genuinely good, though. Eight to ten on a Saturday up on Summit Ave is one of the quieter, better hours in this neighborhood. The Heights is still waking up. You can read something.
No time limit on the table
This is the part that matters and the part nobody advertises. Once you sit down, the table is yours. Nobody is hovering. Nobody is doing the thing where they clear your plate the second the fork goes down.
If brunch turns into two hours and a second coffee and an argument about something unimportant, that is a normal use of a Sunday and we are not going to interrupt it.
What to order
Savory, if you're hungry. Build your own savory toast — sourdough, white, whole wheat or rye, then spread, greens, protein, eggs. Or the avocado toast: smashed avocado, pickled onion, tomato, feta, olive oil. Or the 586 Club, three slices and a double decker, cut in four with picks, which is a serious lunch pretending to be brunch.
Sweet, if it's that kind of morning. This is what we actually built the place around. Crepes made to order, fettuccine crepes, mini pancakes, waffles — pick your sauces, fruit and crunch. The Crepeccino Burrito wraps the whole thing in a crepe with ice cream on the side, which is either brunch or dessert depending on how the week went.
The Dubai crepe, if you have not had it. Pistachio and kataifi. Get extra strawberries, everyone eventually does.
Both, honestly. The correct brunch order here is one savory thing and one sweet thing between two people. This is the whole reason to come to a place that does crepes and eggs under the same roof.
Drinks
Espresso and lattes pulled to order, hot or iced. Ceremonial matcha, whisked, not scooped out of a sweetened powder. And build your own refresher if it is one of those August mornings — lemonade or coconut water base, real fruit puree, syrups, fruit bites.
Where to find us
586 Summit Ave, up in Jersey City Heights, a short walk from the Journal Square PATH and easy from Hoboken, Union City or Downtown. Street parking on Summit and the side streets, which on a weekend morning is a real advantage over brunch downtown.
The full breakfast and brunch menu is here if you want to plan the order before you get here. Some people do that. We respect it.