Royal Ground Coffee

Breakfast on Geary (redux), 
Part XXIII-B

(and also Richmond [District] Coffeehouses 
~ Chapter Six-B)

(It looks like they do not have an official-type web-site no more. Maybe this was the trade-off to pay for all the new renovations.)


Place: Royal Ground Coffee

Location: 5301 Geary Boulevard (on the corner of 17th Avenue); phonicular contact: (415) 751-5282

Hours: open at 6:30am daily (however, I do not think that the kitchen is open for breakfast until about 7:00am)

Meal: Greek Omelette ~ Feta cheese, red onions, tomatoes, cucumber (yes, cucumbers inside an omelette!), bell pepper, olive, served with choice of fresh hash brown or country potatoes (they did not specify if the πατάτες country of origin was Ελλάδα, though), choice of toast: white, wheat, rye, sourdough, multigrain, or English muffin; and to drink a 16 oz glass tumbler-type-thing of a Coffee drink they called a Keith Richards ~ a Latte drink made with four (4!!!!) shots of Espresso

(Ol' Keif did not really get too many lead-singing opportunities, but these two are pretty decent... even if he had to share the singing-duties with some guy named Sir Michael Philip Jagger on both songs.)


After having lunch at Royal Ground Coffee (see previous 'blog-entry from Sunday, August 30th, 2015) a few weeks back, I noticed that along with their brand-spankin'-new (How come people never reference "unregistered-S&M-old" stuff?) renovations, they now are offering many actual breakfastary dishes (before it was just your standard toasted bagels and microwaved scrambled eggs items). Ever on the look-out for good, local (and, in this case, right down the street from my apartment ~ about fifteen-and-a-half blocks or so) breakfast options, I made sure to plan on getting back there to try out the new fare.

After a several months-long closure, they have reopened (just recently ~ in July sometime?) with a new look (and apparently a full working kitchen now, too) which included all new décor and furniture.  Sadly, gone are all the cool old comfy-chairs and couches that used to be there.

Here is just a short list of some of the other new items that even stupid vegetarians might possibly order:

Cheese Omelette ~ choice of cheese: 'merican, Swiss, Cheddar, Jack, Pepper Jack, Provolone;

Vegetarian Omelette ~ spinach, mushroom, tomatoes, Provolone cheese, topped w/ avocado, pico del[ sic ] gallo, & sour cream;

Hash-Over ~ hash brown topped w/chili (which I probably would have to hash-under), two eggs any style, Cheddar cheese, jalapeño, pico del[ sic, again ] gallo, sour cream, & scallion;

six different Eggs Benedict dishes, of which only the Egg[ sic ] Florentine would be a viable vegetarian-friendly choice, though;

and 

several different versions of Pancakes, Waffles, & French Toast.

This ain't your dad's stinkin' St*rbucks menu!

This turned out to be a very good αυθεντική χωριάτικη ομελέτα (which is not just for those peasant-types any longer). The only thing missing here was a cold glassa Ρετσίνα and some wayward neighborhood γάτες. Interestingly, all of the vegetables inside the omelette were raw/un-sautéed (for which I was warned when ordering); this was fine by me, anyway. It had a decent amount of Feta in it, and in largish chunks ~ not just those skimpy-*ssed sprinkles ~ I might add (well, they did add, but I repeated it here). The tomatoes were cherry/grape tomato halves. Now, who would ever think to put cucumbers (raw or sautéed) in an omelette? This actually worked very nicely, too. My only minor complaint (καταγγελιάκι;) would be that the black olives in it were just the standard canned type; this would have been much better made with real Kalamata olives in it, of course.

I always love a joint that offers two different breakfastary potato variants. I went with the country potatoes option and was not disappointed. This was a HUGE pile o' potatoes, made with lots of green bell peppers and white onions throughout.

For condimentary supplementation, Royal Ground Coffee only had Crystal® Louisiana's Pure Hot Sauce. I used some of my own Hot Licks® Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian! Will this d*mn bottle never be empty?!) on the potatoes and a little Dragon's Lair Extra Hot Cayenne & Habanero Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on top of the omelette. I also went with several grinds from my grains of paradise-grinder all over everything (well, not on top of my Coffee... but the thought did cross my mind).

The Coffee-Latte thing was pretty good. I ended up dumping the slice of orange-garnish that was on my plate into it about half-way through drinking it. (Would that make it a Keith Borgia?!) With four (4!!!!) shots of Espresso in it, this is like the equivalent of three to four cuppas all at once. I may not sleep again until Monday night now. (I do know that I have been racing like a p*ss-horse all afternoon long.)


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Greek Omelette ~ 6.9 (whereas, if this had been made with real Kalamata olives, I would probably have rated it 7.1 at least);
Captain Jack Sparrow's Dad Latte ~ 6.74