The Flying Biscuit Cafe

4150 NW 16th Blvd
(Next to Fresh Market)

2.5 thumbs up.

The Flying Biscuit Cafe is a small regional chain based out of Atlanta. They're going to do one thing and one thing only: serve you southern fried food with a little "ya'll" here and a dash of lard there. Restaurants like these force me to look deep inside my core to find out if I'm willing to consider food that is so blatantly and intentionally unhealthy as good. I'll be honest, I"m going to focus alot on this issue here and you may feel that it's irrelevant to the taste and how good a place is. Regardless, it's something I feel is important to discuss.

The place has an outright ethic of being unhealthy. They're a Southern restaurant, explicitly putting out a Southern food vibe. To be fair, there are a handful of items on the menu that won't send you into cardiac arrest, but overall, the vibe is artery clogging. If they can throw bacon in the item, they will. If they can fry all or part of it, they will. If they can add fat to it, they will (see the creamy dreamy grits). One more important issue I have with the place is that it's not authentic. If it was a local greasy spoon that larded up their grits, so be it. I'm fine with that. I just don't like the obvious corporate-chain vibe of the place.

"We did market studies and found out that Americans like to buy home fries with 'moon dust' on them and grits called 'creamy dreamy grits.'"

Again, you may be totally fine with this and that's entirely OK. I just don't like a place that's intentionally trying to increase my caloric intake for the day. Besides the health issues, the place is just OK. I recently ate here for only the 2nd time, even though it's a stone's throw from my house. I just don't need too many breakfast options, as I usually eat breakfast at home. If I do go out for my morning meal, it will most certainly be to The Jones. In my opinion, The Flying Biscuit Cafe is serving you a decent fancy breakfast. It's certainly a few notches above a Denny's or Perkins, but it's still alot of frill for what amounts to just an OK meal.

Here are the 4 meals my breakfast party got:


1. Orange scented french toast with rasberry sauce and honey creme anglaise. These weren't bad, but weren't terribly amazing. For all that fancy shmancy bullshit in the title, they better be outstanding. I also was interested that they did smell like oranges, but didn't taste like them (thus the "scented?"). Kinda a weird thing to do.


2. The Clifton Omelet. 3 eggs stuffed with goat cheese and mushrooms, topped with tomato coulis and basil, served with creamy dreamy grits and a biscuit (with sugar on top). It's hard to combine those ingredients and not reach a tasty result, but my god man. This meal must have your weekly allowance of cholesterol, fat, calories, and sodium!!
3. Veggie Scramble. Three large farm fresh eggs scrambled with white cheddar cheese, onions, spinach, mushrooms, and red & green peppers served with fresh fruit. It was just OK. This was my meal. It sounds like it should kick ass, but it was just decent.

4. Bar-b-q pork quesadilla. The oddball in our group had to get a non breakfast meal and ended up with these. He said they were pretty good, but sour cream and bar-b-q sauce was a weird combo.

Look. You'll probably like this place. I just don't for the following main reasons: 1. It's a corporation's idea of what Southern breakfast should be. 2. It will kill me if I eat there. I think those are pretty solid reasons to not like a place, but then again, I acknowledge that I'm not going to agree with most people on issues like this. More importantly, I think you can find much better breakfast in town. Also, with a little effort, you can certainly find more legitimate Southern cooking.