For more than 35 years, restaurant has served up delicious meals
Published in the March 18-31, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Cook Salvador Peres prepares hash browns in the Just Breakfast kitchen recently.
For nearly four decades, Just Breakfast has served up omelets, pancakes, link sausages, gourmet biscuits and gravy and other scrumptious morning menu cuisine to help local residents and visitors get their day started. Despite its potentially restrictive name, the restaurant also serves a lunch menu that includes burgers, sandwiches and chicken and steak dishes.
Fred Assadi, the third owner of the downtown eatery, bought the business in 2005, and in the past 10 years has developed the ambiance of the cafe, adding booth seating and refining the decor. He also purchased the San Jose-based Just Breakfast.
Assadi has kept the menu traditional “Americana” in its style, with a touch of south-of-the-border offerings such as chorizo, huevos burrito, and a Mexicali omelet that brings together Monterey Jack cheese, Ortega chilies in an egg dish topped with Spanish sauce.
“My goal was not to really make big changes to the foundation but just to add more stuff to the restaurant and make it look better. We didn’t want to mess with success,” he said about the restaurant. “We produce good quality food, and give good service where we’re nice to people. I have customers who come in and tell me, ‘You cannot believe it, I was 6 years old when my mother brought me here for breakfast, and now I’m bringing my own kids.’”
A former quality engineer at Autodesk, Assadi decided to get into the food business when he retired from the design software company by purchasing three Quiznos Sub Sandwich franchises in the Silicon Valley. He later sold them, but enjoyed being a restaurant owner so much that, when he learned about the two Just Breakfast cafes for sale, he decided to jump back in.
“I really like the food business because you work with people and contact them and I love talking to people,” he said. “So we looked at the businesses and saw there was an opportunity here, so we made a deal and took it over … The name of the restaurant is recognized by people. This place has been here for 35 years, it’s pretty popular. I’m also seeing lots of new faces, which is good.”
The restaurant opens at 6:30 a.m. and serves food until 2:30 p.m. on weekdays and 3:30 p.m. on weekends. It has its regular customers who come every day. These include business people working on their laptops to a group of five breakfast diners who come every day for a two-hour meeting.
Among the regulars is Morgan Hill attorney Craig Van Kuelen who has a booth he sits at and works on emails and writing documents while enjoying a two-egg and coffee breakfast as a “nice, relaxed way” to start the day.
“I like the waitresses like Debbie and the other ladies, they’re very friendly,” he said. “And the food is good. I like my eggs overhard, Alaska-style. That’s without the yolk so it’s healthier for you without the cholesterol.”
House specialties include a corned beef hash patty that comes with two poached eggs, peaches and toast. The California eggs Benedict comes with tomatoes, bacon and avocado on an English muffin lathered with Hollandaise sauce. A hefty one-half pound hamburger steak is cooked as the customer requests with two eggs, hash browns and toast. And the mouth-watering buttermilk biscuit on grilled tomato slices ladled with breakfast gravy is garnished with two strips of crisp bacon.
The lunch menu includes traditional tuna melt, roast beef, BLT and club sandwiches, but also offers a chicken pita sandwich and a gyro pita sandwich (both served with home-made Tzatziki sauce). Just Breakfast also provides a variety of croissant sandwiches including vegetarian, tuna salad, and ham or turkey and Swiss cheese.
But it’s the omelets that have helped the cafe to build a reputation as the go-to place in Morgan Hill for breakfast. Specialty omelets include Joe’s Special which is made with Italian spice-seasoned ground beef, combined with spinach, mushrooms and onions topped with melted cheddar cheese, the three-egg Maserati omelet made with Italian sausage, fresh mushrooms and Monterey Jack cheese smothered with marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese, and a gyro omelet made with gyro meat, green onion, tomatoes and feta cheese.
