Sandwiched in between Rocky\u2019s Crown Pub and Bayside Landing in Crown Point, The Menu continues to be a neighborhood eatery and community crossroads.
\n“I always wanted to be down by the beach, a place of my own, a local breakfast place,” confided owner, surfer and former landscaper Dave Russel. He bought the business from a friend in 2007 when it was a fish place.\u00a0
\n“Since then we\u2019ve made a lot of changes \u2013 but subtly,” said Russel, who considers himself a preserver of local history.
\n“San Diego\u2019s changed so much, people don\u2019t realize what it was,” he said. “I wanted to have that as something people could notice with the old pictures and older tables.”
\nNostalgic Pacific Beach photos line The Menu\u2019s walls. One room has a giant nautical mural.\u00a0
\nThe restaurateur noted “the dynamics of the neighborhood has changed a lot. The kids and the younger people can\u2019t afford it anymore. We\u2019ve got more families and young professionals.”
\nRussel praised his stable staff. “I still have many of the same employees I started with,” he said. “A few waitresses have switched out, but I have two that have been with me since the beginning. Two cooks have been here 20 years.”
\nHe prides himself on being “a local community breakfast place” and in people “seeing how hard we work because on the weekends we get slammed.”\u00a0
\nSummer, of course, is prime time.
\n“We get really busy because we get a lot of comeback business, a lot of families that have been coming here for a long time as well as a lot of people from Imperial Valley and Arizona out to beat the heat,” Russel said.
\nRussel\u2019s kids play in local bands. His restaurant backroom is their practice room.
\nThe Menu features a traditional breakfast with plenty of choices. “A lot of our stuff is build-your-own sandwiches, burritos, omelets,” said Russel. “I\u2019ll have new things out in a table side menu in the next couple weeks for my Mexican breakfast: chilaquiles, a black bean breakfast taco and a carne asada burrito.”\u00a0
\nThe Menu\u2019s menu also features pancakes and waffles, special combos, egg dishes including chicken fried steak and eggs Benedict, as well as other Mexican favorites including tortas, quesadillas, and huevos rancheros, also granola, oatmeal and acai bowls.
\nRussel said the most important thing he does is “being out here when it\u2019s busy, talking to everybody, making sure everybody\u2019s got it dialed in because we have a pretty quick turnover.”
\nRussel ticked off the names of PB mom and pops no longer there.
\n“I think that kind of helps me, because people still kind of want that,” he said. “They want to have that feeling (of belonging).” The Menu
\n3784 Ingraham St.
\nHours: 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekends.
\n858-270-9999<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sandwiched in between Rocky\u2019s Crown Pub and Bayside Landing in Crown Point, The Menu continues to be a neighborhood eatery and community crossroads. “I always wanted to be down by the beach, a place of my own, a local breakfast place,” confided owner, surfer and former landscaper Dave Russel. He bought the business from a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":273140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Breakfast in Crown Point is at The Menu","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}