Maybe you’re still stinging from the hit your wallet took in 2008. Or maybe you’ve vowed to shop at locally owned businesses as much as possible this year, to keep more of your money in the 817. Either way, you’ll enjoy the Rise & Shine Café, a hidden treasure with locations in Arlington and Fort Worth.
The Arlington site came first, and, clearly, the folks running the place haven’t spent any money updating the décor over the past 16 years. It could be described either as frumpy or quaint, depending on your mood. If eating in a beautiful space is important to you, go elsewhere. Pendant lights, shiny stainless steel, and glassware all cost money.
But if good food at ridiculously cheap prices is what matters, then wander in. Depending on the size of the crowd at the register, it may take the server a minute to get you seated. Plastic menus, plastic glasses, and 1950s-style flowered plates all await.
Rise & Shine is home to a possibly limitless combination of omelets. There are 54 listed on the menu, but feel free to create your own from any combination of ingredients, from staples like mushrooms and cheddar cheese to relatively exotic ingredients like asparagus, black olives, and avocado. None of the three-egg omelets tops $6. On one visit, we tried the asparagus and cream cheese and found the notoriously temperamental chopped asparagus spears to be done to perfection. The omelets were consistently cooked all the way through without being dry or tough, which is quite the trick when you consider how many omelets the kitchen must generate daily.
Someone at R&S has a sense of humor: Their version of S-O-S, called Biscuit Debris, is aptly named. In fairness, it does look like something that’s been run over. A biscuit sliced in half is covered, truck stop-style, with cheese, ham, sausage, and a creamy, peppery, heavenly gravy. The sausage was a kind of sweet Italian (not the sage-y breakfast) sausage, and you’d think the two meats would have been overkill. They weren’t.
The biscuit itself is enough to crow over: light and slightly sweet, without the overpowering taste of baking soda that sometimes accompanies “homemade” biscuits. The hash browns that came as a side with the omelets and the “Debris” were crunchy on the outside and soft, almost creamy, inside. They’re made from pre-shredded potatoes but cooked flawlessly.
Fair warning: The griddlecakes are huge. If you’re used to the International Corporate Chain of Waffles variety (small, slightly leaden) you may be taken aback by the size of these cakes. They fill an entire plate. And you may not be able to finish the light, fluffy order of three, which comes with warm maple syrup.
In addition to the omelets and varieties of traditional breakfast foods, R&S features chorizo sausage and eggs, taquitos, and the California Garbage plate (basically, Biscuit Debris with some additional veggies.) Breakfast sides include grits and delicious Texas toast.
R&S is a bit of a local hangout, with the average age of those observed hangin’ during our visit being around 50. Multigenerational families were in evidence. The waitresses chatted up and knew all of the “regulars,” and the regulars themselves chatted with one another across tables, and, in some cases, across the restaurant. Open every day except Christmas and Thanksgiving, R&S — a mini-town square of sorts — is nice because, despite the propaganda from our civic leaders, Arlington proper doesn’t actually have a town square.
Possibly the nicest surprise at R&S: Although the restaurant was relatively full, the cheerful server made sure to tell us, “Take your time with the check. I don’t want to hurry you.”
Manager Lynh Pham added, “We treat customers like friends and family. Some people come in every day, 363 days of the year.”
