Madhouse Coffee

A breakfastary mini-roadtrip:
Brisbane, CA[1]

Place: Madhouse Coffee

Location: 402 Visitacion Avenue, Brisbane, CA;
phonicular contact: (415) 467-4003

Hours: open Monday - Friday at 5:30am, 
Saturday & Sunday at 6:30am

Meal: Chile Verde Burrito ~ scrambled eggs, (some kinda) green chilies, and potatoes (there may have been another ingredient or two in it, but I did not remember to write them down); and, to drink, a medium (which really was more of a Large, if you ask me; and if I had ordered their Large, I may not have gotten any sleep the rest of the week) cuppa Madhouse Coffee Peru (Medium-Dark Roast), made in the single cuppa pour-over style

https://www.mclaughlincoffee.com/collections/products/products/peru-organic

(Yeah, I know I coulda also used Madness' "Our House", but I always felt that one was a bit too poppish for my liking.)


As crazy as it may sound, I used to stop by Madhouse Coffee at least once a week several years ago when I was still working in Brisbane proper (2005-2012), mostly just for a cuppa on my way to work, but every so often also for a quick breakfast before work.

The sleepy little hamlet of Bedlam... er... I mean, Brisbane is located immediately south of San Francisco along the western shore of the San Francisco Bay. It is just a stones-throw (or name-calling distance) from where the old Candlestick Park ballpark was once located. It has boundaries to its south with South San Francisco and to its west (over San Bruno Mountain [hill, really]) with Daly City.

One really cool thing about this small town is that, somewhere along the line, someone started painting some of the fire hydrants in town. There are several working fire hydrants that are now pieces of art. Additionally, there is one little corner park dedicated to several non-working plugs, too.

Madhouse Coffee is just your standard coffeehouse, but it is the main one in Brisbane. Seating-wise, inside there are eight small tables that can seat two to four people each. Now, outside, there is a much more spacious three-tiered garden seating area with another eight tables for two to four people, too.

There really are not a lot of items that are offered in the way of breakfast. They do offer a number of sandwiches and the like throughout the day. A few other ideas for breakfast would be bagel breakfast sandwiches. They have a few different items that can be requested, like scrambled (well, nuked, actually) eggs and maybe a "veggie" sausage; plus, they have the requisite cream cheese and also hummus. (However, the bagels and pastries had not been delivered yet this morning when I had arrived a little after 7:30am; otherwise, I might have gone with an egg-"veggie" sausage-bagel sandwich combination. The delivery guys did finally show up just before I had finished eating, though.)

Like many small, family-owned coffeehouses, a lotta the food is already prepared (there were three or four different types of wrapped burritos from which to choose; I did not remember to get the local brand name, though) and displayed in a front counter refrigerated case, and only needs to be reheated. My burrito was tasty enough, even if it was not freshly made for me.

The barista/counter-person guy told me that their Coffee is provided to them by McLaughlin Coffee Roasting Company (local guys outta Emeryville... well, for now, until they are either swallowed up by those bastages at St*rbucks or the almost equally greedy folks at JAB Holding Company/Peet's/Keurig Dr Pepper). They do offer two other pour-over options: Italian (Dark Roast) and Island (Medium Roast). 

I did not ask what they might have to offer in the way of any condimentary supplementation. Once again, I just used some more of my own Old St. Augustine Snake Bite Datil Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) all over the burrito. I left my Coffee unscathed by any hot sauce, though.

(Here is a little Cliff Clavinistic fact: Paul Simon happens to be a HUGE doughnut fan, but Art Garfunkel can not stand them. There would normally be powdered sugar all over the recording studio and Art would occasionally storm out fuming. This was one of the main reasons that they parted ways in the early 70's. You can look it up yerd*mnself if'n you don't believe me!)

(not really such a) Strange Doughnut Interlude

The newest and nearest Dunkin' Donuts® in the Bay Area (and, yeah, I am well-aware that their current corporate name is simply "Dunkin'®", but that just sounds rather silly to me) opened up in South San Francisco back in late January 2017. Today was my initial visit and it was totally a premeditated one. Knowing that I was going to be in the area, anyway, I finally was able to use a freebie $5.00 gift-card that I had received back during Christmas vacation while waiting in line for Cirque du Soleil in St. Petersburg (the one in Florida, not the lesser-known village in Russia). Using the entire $5.00-balance, I was able to purchase a small cuppa Original Blend (which is a bit of a [too] Light Roast for me) and three doughnuts: one Boston Kreme (which I ate there with the Coffee ~ I did not really need another cuppa that soon after breakfast, but it was "free", so I was not going to pass it by), one Jelly (good luck trying to determine exactly which fruit flavour is used in this one; is "red" a fruit?), and one Bavarian Kreme (the latter two I will eat later today/tonight).

(Do I really need to provide an Intro-Net link to Dunkin' Donuts® web-site?!)


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Chile Verde Burrito ~ 6.5;
Madhouse Coffee Peru ~ 6.9;
Dunkin' Donuts® Original Blend ~ 5.8 (and I am being very generous with this rating);
Boston Kreme doughnut ~ 6.0 (just barely; I grew up on these "fat-pills" and still enjoy 'em whenever I am Back East, but they are really wayyyyy too sweet for me now)

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1. The thriving megalopolis of Brisbane, California was actually named after the much smaller town in Queensland, Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-land.

https://brisbaneca.org/

(hahaha! I find it very humourous that they actually call Brisbane "the 'City' of the Stars". How many "Cities" do you know that have a population under 5,000?!)