Downtown Miami has a specific rhythm that anyone who works there recognises: busy from eight until six, and then almost completely empty. All Day at 1035 North Miami Avenue is built for the first half of that, opening at seven in the morning and closing at seven at night, and it does the two things a downtown room needs to do well — coffee and eggs — rather than trying to be everything.
Karpo can tell you whether All Day still has tables at this hour and what else downtown is open if you have arrived after the seven o'clock close.
The name is the concept
Eggs are available for the whole service rather than being cut off at eleven, which is a small policy decision with a large effect on how the room is used. It means a nine-to-five worker can have breakfast at two in the afternoon and a visitor can have it at half past six on the way out of the city.
That is genuinely useful in a district where a lot of the food is lunch-oriented and closes with the offices. An egg dish at four in the afternoon is a specific gap in most cities and this room fills it deliberately rather than by accident.
The coffee is taken seriously
This is not a restaurant that also has a coffee machine. The coffee programme is the co-equal half of the business, which puts it in a small category in Miami — a lot of good coffee rooms do indifferent food, and a lot of good breakfast rooms do indifferent coffee.
Order a filter alongside whatever you are eating rather than defaulting to a latte. Filter coffee is the format where sourcing and roasting are actually legible, and in a room that has bothered to get it right that is the order that rewards you.
Seven to seven, and what the close means
The seven in the evening close is the constraint to plan around. Downtown Miami's dinner options are a different set of rooms in a different part of the district, and this is not one of them. Everything about the schedule points at morning, lunch and the late afternoon.
The seven in the morning open, on the other hand, is one of the earliest serious coffee options downtown. If you are catching an early train on the Brightline from the nearby terminal or starting a working day, that half-hour before the district wakes up is the best time to be in the room.
Where it sits, honestly
North Miami Avenue at the northern edge of downtown, near the Overtown boundary, is a transitional part of the city — some blocks polished, some not, and it changes quickly street by street. That is worth knowing rather than being surprised by, particularly if you are walking after dark, which the seven o'clock close mostly prevents anyway.
The upside is that it is genuinely central. The Adrienne Arsht Center, the Brightline terminal and the Metromover network are all close, and Wynwood is a short distance north. As a starting point for a day that moves around Miami, the position is hard to beat.
What to order
The egg dishes are the anchor and the reason to be here rather than at a pure coffee bar. Order one of them and a filter coffee, and if you are sharing, add whatever pastry has come out most recently.
Portions are sensible rather than enormous, which is a relief in a category that frequently over-serves. Two people can eat properly here without either of them needing to lie down afterwards, and the bill lands well below what a hotel breakfast in the same district costs.
Working here
The room takes laptops but it is not a co-working space, and the middle of the day is busy with the office trade. If you need two hours with a screen, the first hour after opening is the workable window and the mid-afternoon lull is the second.
Between about twelve and two you will be in the way and so will everybody else. That is the correct behaviour for a downtown room at lunchtime and it is worth planning around rather than resenting.
Weekends versus weekdays
The weekday crowd is the office trade and it arrives in two distinct waves, at the open and at lunch. The weekend crowd is entirely different — slower, later, more likely to be having a full breakfast rather than grabbing a coffee, and considerably more likely to fill the tables for an hour at a time.
Both are pleasant and they want different things from the room. If you want the quick version, come on a weekday morning. If you want to sit and eat properly with somebody, the weekend is when the room is built for it and when nobody will be waiting for your table.
Getting there
The Metromover has stations across downtown and the walk from most of them is short. Driving in means paying for a garage in a district built for commuters, which is a poor use of money for a coffee and eggs stop.
From Wynwood the walk south is about twenty minutes and it takes you through a genuinely interesting transitional stretch of the city. From the beach, the causeway and Biscayne Boulevard get you here quickly outside rush hour.
- Address: 1035 North Miami Avenue, Miami, FL 33136, at the northern edge of downtown
- Hours: 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM
- The concept: eggs served across the whole service rather than cut off mid-morning
- Coffee is a co-equal part of the business; order a filter to taste the sourcing
- The 7:00 PM close means this is a morning, lunch and late-afternoon room, not a dinner one
- Best working windows: the first hour after opening and the mid-afternoon lull
- Nearby: the Adrienne Arsht Center, the Brightline terminal and the Metromover network
- About a twenty-minute walk south from Wynwood
Tags: #CoffeeNearMe #Miami #AllDay #DowntownMiami #NorthMiamiAvenue #CoffeeAndEggs #SpecialtyCoffee #Breakfast #CoffeeAndDessert #MiamiCoffee #Overtown #MiamiEats #BrunchMiami
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Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo whether All Day is still serving at this hour, how busy the downtown room is right now, and which other Miami rooms nearby do breakfast well if it has closed.
