Jake's
17 King Street, Northampton, (413) 584-9613
Mon.-Fri. 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Sat.-Sun. 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Entrées $2.50 to $8.95
Next to the Calvin Theatre on King Street in Northampton there is a restaurant called Jake's with the inscription "No Frills Dining" above the doorway. Its front windows face the park across the street. During the last 30 years, if you've hung out at Jake's, you've had a front row seat to the evolving entertainment and business life of Northampton.
At Jake's, the day starts at 6:30 a.m. and ends at 3 a.m. Jakes offers a menu designed for people from every walk of life. At two in the morning on weekends you can get a huge stack of pancakes, bacon and eggs along with bands coming in after a gig, students, party people, cops. At lunch you can have a burger and fries and rub elbows with businesspeople or moms meeting for a chat. Everybody comes for breakfast–for a good cup of coffee and eggs any way you want them.
A regular clued me in on the Saturday Special. One day a week only there is a special of Southern origins that features eggs, cheesy grits and a "bone-in" country ham. Surrounded in a layer of subcutaneous fat that gushes flavor when melted by heat, the ham is a generous slab of thinly sliced smoked meat that is complemented by a puddle of smooth, creamy grits with just a touch of cheese and eggs, not at all greasy. It is a weekend indulgence that should not be missed.
At Jake's the coffee is hot, the staff is friendly and it's the kind of place where you can become a regular, open your laptop or curl up by the wall at the counter and hide behind a paper while waiting for the "usual." The breakfast menu includes all manner of eggs, bagels, pastries, omelets, breakfast burritos and yogurt as well as fruit and granola. On weekdays lunch is served to the downtown crowd who come in for soup, sandwiches, salads and wraps. Some of Jake's lunch specials have the gusto of Saturday morning fare, like Jake's Philly Steak, consisting of grilled onions, peppers and steak with cheese sauce on a hoagie roll, and the Hillshire Special, featuring local kielbasa slathered in sauerkraut on a water roll with Swiss cheese. The late-night menu is the same as breakfast and served between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. for people seeking sustenance to get back out on the dance floor or make the journey home.
During my last visit, I ordered an egg sandwich with grilled tomato, cheese and bacon. My friend, a regular, ordered two eggs over easy with rye toast. Our orders came within eight minutes. My egg-on-a-roll was a tasty handful of breakfast and my friend's eggs-over-easy had a nice crisp edge to them. The home fries are normally grilled to perfection and engineered specially for sopping up egg yoke and/or fitting into a slice of pumpernickel toast along with some scrambled egg.
On another trip, a 7-year-old dining companion ordered a plate of pancakes and I had the waffles. My order of waffles was divided into quarters with tiny waffle indentations that plumped up nicely under butter and syrup. Between forkfuls of the fluffy pancakes, my young friend said, "These are the best I've ever had, but the best thing about Jake's is being with you." Ever the ladies' man, he later allowed that while the pancakes were the best he had ever had, his mother's were better.
