Back to Brunch--June's Breakfast

After mass this Sunday, three of the Catholic fellows and I headed to a brunch place just down the street from the church in Overbrook, which is a part of Philadelphia. I'm pretty sure it was called "June's Breakfast," although the awning out front said, "J's."

The place was very unassuming, especially for the number of mansions (you can't even count them) in that neighborhood. There were down-home booths, wood paneling, and green curtains with pink flowers. You know the sort of place I'm talking about.

I ordered the very Pennsylvania special--chipped beef on toast. I'm not an expert on chipped beef on toast, as I'm a sausage gravy and biscuits girl, myself, but I thought it was pretty good. The other meals were not so spectacular; it is possible that their inexpensive price made up for that (I think that one or two of the fellows ordered egg sandwiches for $1.75). My meal came with home fries--potato pieces smashed and fried sort of like plantains, with onions and green peppers. I'll tell you: this was nothing too special, but it was obvious that they made them there, and didn't order pre-perfectly cut potatoes, which beats out many of the other brunch places I've been to, including more expensive ones.

But actually, I have a huge complaint: they were out of coffee and they did not make more. What sort of brunch place runs out of coffee?! In their defense, I think that they'd just closed when we walked in (2 p.m.), so it was actually nice of them to stay open to feed us. But what is brunch without coffee?

Why in the world, you might ask, were we looking for brunch at 2 p.m.? We were surprised, too. We chose to attend the 12:15 mass, but it happened to be the one celebrating the pastor's 25th anniversary of his vows to his order, so it went rather long. Plus, we partook in the lemonade and cupcakes afterward in the church basement.

The pastor of the church is a member of the Mercedarians, an order that I'd never heard of before. Evidently, they were founded in 1218 to minister to and ransom Christians who had been caught by the Muslims. As far as I understand it, they sometimes also offered themselves in the place of those Christians.