Description: Life in New York City must be making my lungs soft. Whenever I travel to an area that hasn’t yet banned cigarette smoking from restaurants, bars, etc., it always comes as a shock when I smell the foul stench of someone’s smoldering Marlboro Light burning down in an already loaded ashtray. Hey, don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a cig from time to time, but not in between bites of pancakes and eggs. Call me crazy, but that’s a combination I can do without.
And so it was that Trixie and I stepped into Oma’s Breakfast Club, located in downtown Charlevoix. It’s on the end of a tiny strip mall that also boasts Olson’s grocery store and The Shire, an Internet-ready shop where you’ll find gamers arguing the merits of moving one space to slay the dragon, or of saving the wizardry card for the orcs hidden in the magic castle on level five.
Anyway… Oma’s. Right. The decor here is about as no-frills as it gets, with a few tables surrounding those old-school, side-by-side booths that have retractable windows in the middle that can be lowered for big groups. Four baskets of fake flowers hang over the booth section, but more importantly, two ceiling fans helped dissipate lingering smoke left from one woman’s cigarette(s). What else can I say? Oma’s is your typical, everyday breakfast diner—think of your favorite one at home, and the image is likely close to Oma’s.
Still, Oma’s was packed even by Sunday standards, so we eagerly grabbed a table and dove into the breakfast menu after a long morning of bass fishing. Open until 2pm every day of the week, Oma’s has all the offerings of any solid breakfast eatery: omelets, toast, pancakes, waffles, bacon and sausage, etc. There’s a particularly large selection of omelets, including the hash (three eggs, corned beef hash, onion, and Swiss cheese) for $6.25 and the O.D. Special (five egg whites, mushroom, green pepper, American potatoes, tomato, onion, and toast) for $6.65.
After some deliberation, Trixie settled on the Western omelet (three eggs, ham, bacon, green pepper, onion, and American cheese), and I went with a half order of the O.D. Our high-school age waitress, who looked like she had just started the dreaded summer job, did her best to keep our coffee cups and water filled, even though the place was pretty hopping.
By the time we had finished our hearty, tasty breakfasts, Oma’s had noticeably thinned out and the cigarette smoke had virtually disappeared. The more I thought about it, the more I was actually thankful for the brief smell of Marlboro Light—a trip to a Midwestern diner just isn’t the same without it.
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