The Good Egg Cafe

I was excited to try this place for brunch one day with my boyfriend since neither of us had eaten here. My advice is GO ANYWHERE ELSE. Upon entering, we weren’t greeted so we awkwardly stood around until an employee finally told us to seat ourselves. We looked over the menu, and then looked over the menu again… but still didn’t meet our server. It took over five minutes for someone to get to our table. A young man took our drink order, but I suspected he wasn’t actually a waiter since he didn’t really know what a mimosa was. We waited an additional ten minutes just for our drinks alone. NOBODY came by our table or apologized for the wait. Finally after 25 minutes of waiting an apathetic waitress comes over and asks is what we want. We explain how ridiculous the wait has been to which she said, «it’s been a rough morning here but I’m here now so do you want me to take your order.» The café maybe had five other diners in it max, including another party who was complaining about the wait also. If a restaurant is making excuses when the establishment isn’t even full then that’s a bad sign. We couldn’t even get an apology for the poor service. We finished our drinks and left.
Do yourself a favor and go to another breakfast spot. This one isn’t worth your money and time, and obviously they don’t care if they make you wait.

Have given this restaurant a last try. Will no longer go. Food is not great and service is really lax. Worst is cleanliness of restaurant. Really needs to be cleaned up.

This is by far the worst breakfast experience! We were a table of 4, waited over 30 min to be seated when there were 5 empty tables! We placed our order, and waited over at least 45 minutes just for eggs over medium, which turned out to be over easy and super cold! Never again!

I love THE FOOD at The Good Egg. Really, I do. Don’t come here hungry, though. The service is consistently slow or almost non– existent between the waitstaff and the kitchen. We have now been waiting AN HOUR for a two person breakfast order. Our coffee has been refilled three times and we have had two Bloody Mary’s. We came in at 10:50 and it’s now 11:54. There are a number of empty seats. I ordered my eggs Benedict with Maine crab. Perhaps the kitchen is out catching crabs in Casco Bay and will return shortly. Next time I’ll just order the veggie (unless they need to drive to the local farm first). Food comes out and we think, «surely that must be ours.» Alas. We continue to wait. It is now noon. We should have just ordered lunch.
UPDATE:
Update. Food fail. Eggs Benedict came out sloppy and without poached eggs — sunny side and sloppy all over the place. My gf’s breakfast sandwich had sunny side as well, so it couldn’t be eaten as a sandwich. Obviously something is going on in the kitchen at The Good Egg.

I imagine this is what a breakfast joint would be like if no adults ran it. A real «manager» on staff might do this place a favor. Seemed like a bunch of teens in their pajamas. Polite, but somewhat casual. Seriously. First, my wife likes to drink diet coke in the morning. No diet coke (or any other diet soda). Tried ordering blueberry pancakes — No blueberries (so no blueberry pancake). Uh, summer in Maine and no blueberries? Strange. Whole place needs a «freshening up» — seems a bit dated and less than clean (in appearance). In terms of food, we had one of their special «hash» dishes as well as French toast. Hash was pretty darn tasty, and the eggs came out perfectly, but the French toast was lacking big time. Also note that the kitchen is a bit slow, so don’t expect to rush in and out of here. Overall, a «meh» experience — I don’t think I’ll be back.

We finally tried this place after living here for several years. It was not busy when we arrived, they only had two tables and one of them was on their way out. We were told to pick a table by the server so we did.
10 minutes went by and she finally came back and brought us a menu and asked if we wanted coffee. She brought the coffee, and then disappeared for another long period. She wasn’t unfriendly, but not friendly either. She seemed like she didn’t want to talk to us. Finally came back and took our order.
We were talking and drinking our one cup of coffee and both had finished our cups. Again, there were only two tables at this point. Over 45 minutes later they brought our food out. It was cold. It tasted like it had been done for a half an hour and just sitting out. Another server then asked if we wanted more coffee. She came and only filled our cups about half full and walked away.
We ate our breakfast that was pretty disappointing, but we were starving at this point.
i can be patient if the food takes a minute, but the least they could do is check on your coffee and not avoid you. i think in a city that prides itself on it’s culinary and hospitality excellence, this is unacceptable.
That is fine that their food is slow to prepare. But i really feel they need to step up the service. You shouldn’t feel like you don’t belong when you are paying for this kind of experience.

I try not to judge a place by how many people are inside (especially on a weekday morning), but it’s hard not to when you enter a nearly empty establishment. The décor reminded me of a pinterest project from 2005 that just hasn’t aged well: take memere’s old furniture off the street and paint it funky colors.
Here are my memories of my first visit to The Good Egg (other than my lovely company and our conversation, of course):
* The menu itself was a breakfast diner tribute to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Seriously. There was no rhyme or reason to the order of the selections and, as a Type A, it totally annoyed me.
* French toast on Italian was good enough, but the flavors weren’t anything out of the ordinary. I did enjoy how thick the bread was, but there wasn’t any fluff to it.
* They gave me a little tea pot for my tea, so I could have two cups. I appreciate it. There are many places that only give you one cup and proceed to wash their hands of you.

«Meh. I’ve experienced better» really is the perfect one sentence summary, in my opinion, for The Good Egg Café. From the moment I arrived to the moment I left, all I could think about was, «There are so many other restaurants I’d rather be at right now.» And that’s the problem, I think, with TGEC: they’re. just. so. underwhelming. And when you live in a city that excels in the culinary world — especially brunch — you need to step up your game. Unfortunately, The Good Egg Café does mediocre really well and that’s just not enough for me.
We arrived at 8:30 and there were only two other tables filled — both with elderly folks. The house music was sometimes on, sometimes off (which makes the entire place awkwardly quiet). The table we sat at had a seriously bad wobble (bully on us for not changing seats; bully on them for letting that be acceptable). I ordered coffee, my friend ordered tea. When it comes to basic black coffee, I feel like I’m pretty easy to please. But… my mug had a layer of grime on the handle and the coffee tasted burnt. Meh.
I ordered the veggie hash (because everyone seems to rave about it), but it was pretty lackluster. The portion size seemed small for what I was paying and the entire thing was incredibly under-​seasoned. Some salt and pepper remedied that, but after one bite I was hit with a new sensation: grease. Truthfully, it’s the only thing I can remember from how the dish tasted. Again: meh.
To the credit of the waitress (who didn’t entirely seem like she wanted to be there), my friend asked if they had cinnamon rolls. She didn’t know, so she went out back to check for us. Apparently at the time they didn’t have any, but they would create some just for us that would be ready by the time we left. How great, right? How accommodating, right? Unfortunately, a few moments later, the waitress came back to tell us «actually, we don’t have any dough left, so we can’t make you one after all.» Say it with me now: meh.
There are just too many other awesome locations to grab breakfast or brunch at, that I can’t see myself going out of my way to come back here again. I truly do want to like The Good Egg Café/​Pepperclub, but it just isn’t for me.

A great place to go with a friend that you would like to talk to for a long, long time before the food comes. Convivial atmosphere, though as a solo diner, my occupation of the last free two-​top was met with disappointment by the host/​server. Bring lots of loose change if you plan on parking a car — I had to go re-​feed the meter before my eggs came. Very good food, except for completely missing the execution on the warming-​up-​beans part. Also, I was not provided a with a knife, and no hot sauce was available.

We went to breakfast on Sunday. We got seated right away which was nice. I ordered a mango mimosa & green tea. Two in our party had the corn beef hash & eggs. Very good. Full of flavor just a little shy on the corn beef. The other person got the large & that it was blueberry pancake. The cinnamon roll was a little dry.
We want to go back for dinner some time.

I am a fan of this place. I’ve been going here for breakfast occasionally for years and have never been disappointed. Located on a short ‘restaurant row’ of similar foodie friendly places, this is a hipster style place. Think mismatched chairs, a few window booths, funky wall paint, a few old Christmas lights, black chalk boards with beer, wine and specials. You get the idea.
Service is ‘hipster’ too. Young people who are cool and serious about what they do but probably slightly undertrained in effective table service techniques. The kitchen, as noted by other reviewers, is not fast. This is not a ‘hit it and quit it’ proposition. If you like to linger over coffee and don’t have to be somewhere right away this would be a good choice. Plan on about 45 minutes for an average breakfast.
Given the funky, slightly run down atmosphere, turtle kitchen and average service why four stars? The food. The vegetarian hash is a favorite. I’ve never had a bad egg here always perfectly prepared, probably hence the name. The coffee is fresh and tasty. Dishes are sometimes presented with a nice flourish, for example a rosette made of salmon. I love the variety, the accommodation of specific order requirements and the way the menu is put together. There’s a quality feel to the food, served on nice heavy plates with real silverware. I like it for a ‘stepped up’ and healthy breakfast experience and have both the time and the cash to make it happen. I like to take out of town visitors here for an ‘anti-​chain’ local breakfast experience.

I’ve been coming to this place for years, and I was really surprised to see so many of the negative reviews. They are mostly based on the service, which can at times be a tad pokey but not horrible in my experience. The food is wonderful. I love the atmosphere, which is warm, casual and colorful. The staff is friendly and for the most part attentive. The brunch menu has a wonderful range of dishes to suit many diets and palettes, from vegan to fish to meat and potatoes, heavy on veggies and fresh local ingredients. Try the Pepper Club for a great supper along the same lines.

My girlfriend and I came to Portland for the morning and went to the Good Egg for breakfast. Business was busy there, but not overwhelmingly so (we waited less than 5 minutes for a table on a Saturday morning at around 10). That said, it took us almost an hour to get our food (we both got very simple egg dishes off the menu). When we asked our waitress to check on our order after 45 minutes she didn’t apologize or seem to think it was out of the ordinary for the food to take so long. When the food did come out, it tasted fine but was definitely not worth the wait.
A note for gluten-​conscious consumers: my girlfriend, who has Celiac disease and notified the waitress that she was gluten free, was made sick by gluten contamination. Though they do offer gluten-​free bread, the Good Egg does NOT claim to be a gluten free establishment. That said, in our experience their kitchen did not take sufficient measures to avoid gluten contamination.
We will not return to Good Egg. There are lots of other places to get a cheap, simple, average-​tasting breakfast that don’t take an hour.

I was excited to visit the Good Egg for breakfast as I had heard good things and had tasted their delicious cinnamon buns before, however my experience with the service was absolutely atrocious. After first walking in, we stood around for ten minutes before having to walk up to the bar just to put our name down for a table. The waitress told us that it would be a five to ten minute wait, which we were completely fine with, but we were not called to a table for forty-​five minutes. During this wait we were not offered coffee or updated on the time we had left and were surrounded by open tables.
Eventually, a waitress put together two tables to accommodate our group of three. In the process of doing this, she dropped and shattered a glass of jam and never bothered to pick it up. We were forced to sit on top of this sticky mess and my sister got jam all over her shoes, assuming she would be free to walk to her seat.
We ordered our food (the veggie hash was delicious!) and coffee without a hitch. However, the waitress was extremely inattentive and I had to wait at least twenty minutes for a coffee refill. The wait for the food was not bad and the food was well worth it. All members of my party enjoyed their meals (although the portions were quite small for the price).
We had wanted to order cinnamon buns, but they were all out by the time we arrived (get here early to get these – so good). We decided to order one of their frozen cinnamon bun kits instead. When we got it, however, there were no instructions included. We asked the waitress if we could have a copy, but she said they were all out and didn’t bother to write them out for us and instead only told us what she «thought» they might be – a terrible end to top off the already poor service.
Overall, this is a place for great food, but abominable service. If you’re willing to put up with that, you can still get a good meal.

I would give 5 stars, except that it took us an hr to get our breakfast. People who came in a half hour after us got served first, for no apparent reason. Fortunately we enjoyed 3 huge cups of their dgc organic coffee. Restaurant had fun vibe and top notch food. We has eggs with veggie has and it was perfect. The cinnamon roll we got to go was also fab.

I’m from the South and a major foodie… I love a good breakfast and you cannot beat this place… DELICIOUS! Everything is local and homemade. I don’t normally eat bacon or english muffin, but this place, my goodness, has the best bacon and english muffin I ever had! I dare you to try it if you want a reallllly good breakfast place!

Service was a little slow, but things take a little longer when made with love :) The breakfast was delicious! French toast is the thickest I have ever had, the bread was homemade and the sausage was local. I had breakfast with my husband on our anniversary here so it’s a great place to enjoy a leisurely yummy breakfast :)

The Good Egg is interesting, to say the least. While the name made me envision your typical greasy spoon diner, as many other reviewers point out it is much more of the earthy/​crunch vibe. It isn’t very clear when you arrive if you should sit or wait for someone and at one point I saw at least 4 people who seemed to work there chatting and they didn’t seem to notice our group (of six) so that was a little frustrating as we just wanted to know if there was a wait and if so, how long, so we could decide if we should try somewhere else. Once someone came over we were seated immediately so that sort of made up for it.
The waitresses were friendly (we had one person take/​bring drinks, one take food order and one bring the food) although the girl who took/​brought the drinks didn’t write it down and therefore, slightly messed some of it up. They don’t have cranberry juice, which is odd, but they have a variety of other interesting juices such as mango and pomegranate blueberry so if you like your juice a little more on the adventurous side you are in luck. The coffee was very good and comes from a local roaster, which can generally bit hit or miss. They serve their sugar and cream in tiny antique bottles, which was neat but also annoying because the bottle the cream was in didn’t have the greatest pouring mechanism.
The menu is very vegan/​glueten free friendly but still manages to have some traditional breakfast staples for the salty meat lover. All of their pancake/​french toast options looked delicious but are a little more earthy side so if you’re looking for something with straight up white flour stick to the eggs. I had the Burrito from Hell, which although was very tasty, was not spicy at all, so don’t be fooled by the name. Their menu advertised homemade cinnamon rolls, and everyone in our group was VERY excited to try these, but alas, they were sold out (it was around 10am on a Sunday).
Of the six of us, everyone seemed to really enjoy their meal and they had a lot of tables for parties of that size so definitely a good spot if you’re with a larger group.

This place was very busy at about 10 AM on Black Friday, populated by crunchy granola and hipster types. A little funky with collaged laminated menus in Comic Sans, brightly colored walls with hand-​painted accents, and irregularly sized booths. When you walk in there is no indication of whether to wait to be seated, so you have to peek around the folding screen at the door and hope that a waitress with enormous (over 1 inch?) plugs will notice you.
Service was a bit scattered but reasonably quick. (The server apologized for the slow service and said that normally they are quicker.) There seemed to be a lot of vegan and gluten-​free options.
The egg and cheddar English muffin sandwich with meat sausage was delicious – muffin was baked in-​house – albeit on the small side for $ 5. I wish the sausage had been more heavily spiced though (maybe the meat items do not get as much attention as the veggie ones). The French toast (with oatmeal bread) was outstanding, very thick with a pleasant texture, and the Maine maple syrup was worth the $ 1.50 for the teeny shot glass. The coffee was also good also and sourced from a local coffeeshop chain.

This place is great! As a fairly newly diagnosed gluten-free…ian? Antiglutentarian? Unglutenoid… er, whatever :) it’s been a struggle to find ‘safe’ places to eat. Until recently, I also had to give up a zillion other common foods, including dairy, eggs and garlic (it’s in everything, ahhh!) so I was feeling particularly downtrodden the first time I happened upon The Good Egg.
I figured it’d be yet another «let’s walk up to the window, look at the menu then turn around feeling disappointed and hungry» experience, but holy shizzam they had stuff I could eat! And not just any stuff, like… DELICIOUS stuff! Healthy stuff!
Being ‘just gluten-​free’ feels like a walk in the park compared to how I used to have to be, and I can’t wait to go back and have more things that I can eat now like eggs and cheese. But when we went the first time, it was honestly one of the first times I felt like I had a ‘real breakfast’ in the better part of a year. My husband got an omelette (and on another occasion got a breakfast sandwich to go), and was blown away. I got a side of bacon, a side of home fries and the sauteed kale. It was all so good. It was the best kale I’d ever had. I didn’t even know kale could taste like that/​be so crispy and amazing. I could have wept. Seriously.
They were so friendly and laid back, very accommodating to my questions and all in all it was just a great place to eat. The only thing keeping it from 5 stars was just sort of the awkwardness of walking in and waiting for several minutes and feeling like we were invisible. Nobody was like «oh we’ll be right with you!» and there isn’t really an entryway so we were sort of feeling like we were ‘in the way’ yet not sure if anyone was aware we were there. It felt like forever but it was probably like 5 minutes. When you’re feeling awkward, time passes extra slowly I think :) But I’ll take a little extra laid-​backness if it means I get to have that delicious food, and so affordably too!