It’s Tops (Fountain) Coffee Shop

"People who live in glass houses[1] shouldn't get stoned." ~ Leo Rosten

http://www.itstopscoffeeshop.com/


Place: It's Tops (Fountain) Coffee Shop
Location: 1801 Market Street (somewhat at Octavia Boulevard)
Hours: open daily at 8:00am
Meal: Create your own Omelette ~ ("my creation" was) with avocado, jalapeños, and bell pepper and onion sauté[2], served with home fried potatoes and choice of toast; and a glass of apple-and-cranberry juice (this wasn't already apple-cranberry juice combination out of the bottle, I simply had them mix for me half-apple and half-cranberry juice… let the fruity optimist-pessimist debate begin)

(For the first two songs, today's EweToobular juxtaselections are simply from the name of the place and the name of the Motown group. Besides, I don't ever really need an excuse to include any songs with the mellifluous styling of Levi Stubbs and the always smooth and suave Four Tops. 

The final song is just because I stumbled across it last week while canoodling around on EweToob. This guy can really play the guitar!)


It had been a few years since I last ate at It's Tops
(Fountain) Coffee Shop (see last 'blog-entry from September 18th, 2011) so I figured a return trip was overdue. The sign on the outside of the building says that they have been open "Since 1935"; however, they also have a movie marquee-type sign over the entrance that says "AWΣSOME HOT CAKES" (which is better than "AWESOME HOT CAKΣS", I suppose; that damn VANNA WHITΣ must have absconded with the other "E"); so take it all for what it is worth. I just know that they have been around as long as I have lived in San Francisco (since November 1986), so even that would still be pretty long. The seating consists of twelve diner-counter stools and eight reddish (well, they were probably a deeper red or burgundy many years ago) vinyl-covered booths of varying sizes that could seat from four to eight people. All of the booths have jukebox devices at them, and there are three more connections along the diner-counter. Unfortunately, there were no pink-and-black-uniformed waitresses to be seen there yet this early in the morning.

It's Tops offers a pretty decent amount of items from which to choose for breakfast. I was thinking about getting Susan's Spicy Spuds (home fried potatoes doused with house made salsa, cheese, and a dab of sour cream on the side; can be made with avocado or mushrooms added, too); I probably would have had them add an egg or two laid on Top and gone with both the avocado and mushroom additions. They also have something called Stuffed Waffles ~ they offer either Bacon or Sausage (with the dead, decaying animal flesh on the inside) and Walnut Banana (with the walnuts on the inside and the banana on Top) ~ which sounded good, too.

This was a pretty good omelette. It was a little light on the avocado for my tastes, but it more than made up for it with the amount of jalapeños in it, and these were fresh, sliced jalapeños which always beats the picked kind out of a jar or can. The bell peppers were both the orange and yellow variety; the onions were just of the plain ol' white type. I probably woulda-shoulda gotten this also with Jack cheese in it. I went with sourdough toast as my bread choice, and this actually comes as grilled, not toasted, bread (I like that as a change once in a while). 

Now their version of homefries are really exceptional. They are thinly sliced and then grilled, which makes them somewhat of a hybrid of homefries and hashbrowns. I spoke with the owner/manager-type guy, and he said that they used to make their breakfastary potatoes with hashbrowns, but they ended up being harder to make (bloody/scraped knuckles don't really add any appeal to the mess), so they went to this style, which works just fine for me.

It's Tops offers for condimentary supplementation both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. I went with some of my own The Wiltshire Chilli Farm smoked Chipotle chilli sauce on the potatoes and some Mango hot chilli sauce (Thanks for both, Cindy & Greg!) on the omelette. (Unfortunately, so far, the Chipotle one is the only bottle with which I am really making any noticeable headway.)

Regrettably, today's breakfastary meal did not include any "sugar pies" or "honey bunches", Renée…


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Create your own Omelette ~ 6.3; home fried potatoes ~ 6.8


1. People that live in Pateley Bridge and Bewerley should be careful of being overly self-righteous, too.*

*(Of course, that poor joke will probably only be understood by one or two people that read this stupid 'blog-thing.)

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer of the day:

"Sauté" is a French word; it is the past participle of the verb "sauter" which means "to jump, skip, or bounce". 

Extra-added kudos goes to It's Tops for spelling this correctly avec accent aigu on both their printed and on-line menus.