Closed?

What do you mean closed? Their website says they’re open seven days a week.

It’s our first full day in Florence, OR, and before hitting the Visitors’ Center, we had planned on breakfast at a restaurant mid-way between our RV park and downtown. But it’s closed. On to the Visitor’s Center where we asked a nice woman for a breakfast recommendation. She really could not recommend one place over another, but from a list of restaurants, we chose to head to Kozy Kitchen just down the street.

“Ten years ago Dave and Linda Grover were living in Denver, CO, dreaming of operating a restaurant when they spotted a North Bend diner listed on a realty website. They bought it sight unseen, quit their successful careers, packed up the kids and aimed for Oregon. ‘Crazy, huh?’ said Dave Grover. Even crazier, they became wildly successful…” (Nate Traylor, Business Editor, theworldlink.com).

Today, the Grovers own four Kozy Kitchens with the Florence outlet being the most recent. And while it has only been open since the fall of 2010, it has the feel of a restaurant with a long local history. Patrons and servers greet each other by name. Patrons greet other patrons by name. It’s a big happy family.

The Grovers are no strangers to the food service industry. At one point Dave…owned a sandwich shop in Santee, Calif. The Runway Deli raised eyebrows when Grover unveiled a 150-foot-long Italian sandwich as a grand opening stunt. Later, Santee city officials commissioned him to make a 300-foot-long sub to be featured during a parade. ‘That was a stressful day,’ he said with a laugh.

“…the secret of Kozy Kitchen's success is surprisingly simple: Keep prices low and customers coming back. ‘You can't make money on just one person in this economy,’ Linda Grover said. ‘We decided to keep the prices where they're at and get them in volume.’ Dave Grover sums it up succinctly: ‘Delight your customers’" (Nate Traylor, Business Editor, theworldlink.com).

And these reasonable prices are coupled with large quantities of very good food. The chicken fried steak on the Ultimate Chicken Fried Steak Platter (two eggs, chicken fried steak smothered in country sausage gravy, hash browns, and French toast) comes on its own plate. And then there are the Big Mama Platter (a biscuit topped with a sausage patty, two eggs and sausage gravy and served with hash browns), the Chicken Fried Steak Scramble (skin-on home fries topped with a chicken fried steak, scrambled eggs, and sausage gravy), and the Love Browns (hash browns topped with grilled onions, banana peppers, cheddar and jack cheese,
diced tomatoes, and sour cream).

We wisely didn’t order any of those. Instead, Chuck chose the Classic Breakfast—two eggs, hash browns, and your choice of two bacon strips, two sausage links, or the petite chicken fried steak. And you can see from the photo, he selected the CFS.

The CFS itself was quite good. It was tender and free of gristle and either the coating or the steak itself had been nicely seasoned. But the gravy left something to be desired being both lumpy and, in my opinion, rather short on sausage.

His scrambled eggs were—well, they were eggs. Nothing more to say there. And the hash browns were cooked to a nice crusty crispness, just as I like them.

I am not normally a fan of sweet breakfasts and prefer something savory instead. But still I was intrigued by the morning’s breakfast special—the Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. And they came with one egg and a side of either bacon or sausage links, thus giving me that salty component.

These pancakes were amazing with a wonderful crunchy sugary crust on their surface. I can only surmise on how they were made. Our server told me that the base batter was put on the grill and then the cinnamon mixture added to the top side. Because this mixture is heavier than the pancake batter, the mix “sinks.” Given the perfection of the cinnamon swirls, I am guessing that this mix was applied using a squirt bottle dispenser like those used for catsup and mustard. And this must mean that the mix is in liquid form. Was pancake batter the base? Am I over thinking this?

But for further embellishment, vanilla icing was lightly spread over the finished cakes. Boy, did I need those salty sausages which, incidentally, were pretty good. And through some magical force, my one egg morphed into two.

Were it not for the mediocre gravy on Chuck’s CFS, we would have been in high Addie territory here. But instead Kozy Kitchen receives 3.5 Addies.

To review the role of Adler, Kitty Humbug, and the Addie rating system, read the November 14, 2011 blog.