Highland Park is a front-loaded neighbourhood. Its best hours are between about seven and eleven in the morning, when the light is good, the arroyo is walkable, the heat has not arrived and the good rooms are open. By four in the afternoon a surprising number of them have closed for the day. If you only ever come here in the evening you are seeing the least interesting version of the place.
Several of the best rooms here are done by three and the coffee stops at five, so a late start narrows the options fast. Tell Karpo what time you are getting up and it will plan the morning backwards from that.
The room that closes at three
Kitchen Mouse Cafe runs 8am to 3pm daily and is the neighbourhood's anchor for a proper sit-down breakfast. The menu covers gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan eating without being limited to it — toasts, pancakes, tacos, bowls and sandwiches, made with organic ingredients. The quinoa bowl with roasted vegetables and tahini is the straightforward order; the buffalo bowl with brown rice, black beans, collards, yams, dill-cashew sauce and buffalo sauce is the more interesting one.
This is a breakfast and lunch room rather than an all-day café, and the 3pm close is firm. It is the single most common way a Highland Park morning plan fails — by starting it in the afternoon.
The deli version
Belle's Delicatessen at 5022 York Boulevard has grown from a takeout window into a full-service deli, and its breakfast register is the bagel sandwich with pastrami-spiced lox, plus scallion latkes on the side. That is a Jewish-deli breakfast crossed with the neighbourhood's pastrami obsession, and it is more substantial than anything else on this list.
Ggiata Delicatessen at 5025 York Boulevard is almost directly opposite and runs 9am to 8pm Monday through Thursday and 9am to 9pm Friday through Sunday — the longest hours of anywhere useful here, which makes it the fallback when everything else has closed.
The all-day one on Figueroa
Highly Likely at 5526 North Figueroa Street is an all-day café with a backyard patio that turns into a sit-down dinner spot after 5pm, running 8am to 9pm Monday through Thursday, 8am to 10pm Friday and Saturday and 8am to 9pm Sunday. The backyard patio is the reason to choose it for breakfast specifically — outdoor morning seating in Northeast Los Angeles is the correct use of the climate.
Galco's Soda Pop Shop at 5567 North Figueroa Street runs 7am to 3pm and does Italian sandwiches alongside several hundred varieties of bottled soda. It is a strange place to have breakfast and an entertaining one.
Coffee, and the five o'clock wall
The neighbourhood has two roasteries within a few blocks of each other. Café de Leche at 5000 York Boulevard opened in autumn 2008, roasts on site, runs 7am to 5pm every day including weekends, and the drink to order is the horchata con espresso that has been on the board since it opened. Civil Coffee at 5629 North Figueroa Street runs 7am to 5pm daily with the kitchen stopping at 2pm, and roasts weekly on Fridays.
Almost all of Highland Park's coffee closes at 5pm. That is early by Eastside standards and it is the practical fact that shapes the day here: the morning is long and generous, the afternoon has a hard edge on it, and anything after five is a bar-and-taco proposition rather than a café one.
Choosing
A proper sat-down breakfast, before 3pm: Kitchen Mouse. Something substantial and salty: Belle's, for the lox bagel. Outside, in the morning sun: Highly Likely's backyard on Figueroa. Coffee with a genuine local signature: Café de Leche's horchata espresso. Started too late and everything is shut: Ggiata, which is open until eight.
Practical notes
Addresses: Belle's Delicatessen 5022 York Blvd; Ggiata Delicatessen 5025 York Blvd; Highly Likely 5526 N Figueroa St; Galco's Soda Pop Shop 5567 N Figueroa St; Café de Leche 5000 York Blvd; Civil Coffee 5629 N Figueroa St. Kitchen Mouse runs 8am–3pm daily; Galco's 7am–3pm; Ggiata 9am–8pm Monday to Thursday and 9am–9pm Friday to Sunday; Highly Likely 8am–9pm Monday to Thursday, 8am–10pm Friday and Saturday, 8am–9pm Sunday. Café de Leche and Civil both run 7am–5pm daily, with Civil's kitchen stopping at 2pm. There is a car park behind Civil between 56th and 57th; otherwise parking is metered street, easier on Figueroa than on York. The Metro A Line stops at Highland Park station near the Figueroa addresses.
Tags: #BestBreakfastNearMe #HighlandPark #LosAngeles #KitchenMouse #BellesDelicatessen #HighlyLikely #CafeDeLeche #YorkBlvd #NortheastLA #NELA #NeighborhoodGuides #LABreakfast #Figueroa #LAEats
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Ask Karpo first
Highland Park's mornings are generous and its afternoons close early, with one room stopping at three and the coffee stopping at five. Ask Karpo what is open at the hour you actually surface, which side of the neighbourhood it is on, and where the outdoor tables are before the heat arrives.
