Breakfast Republic
This San Diego-based breakfast chain boasts over a dozen locations, including two in Orange County
We’re not huge breakfast or brunch fans, but when we’re in the mood for morning meals, we’ve found that Snooze, Gram Cafe, and I Heart Pancakes cater best to our sweet needs, with Hawaiian-style Stacks sadly falling off our recommended list. Since we brunch only infrequently, we’ve passed by Breakfast Republic numerous times over the years without stopping in, but always felt intrigued by the serious, purposeful-sounding name and reasonably populated patio dining area – as well as the daily 7:00AM restaurant’s complete closure after 3:00PM each day. While the San Diego-based chain hasn’t expanded in Orange County for years, having opened its Irvine (University Center) outpost in mid-2019 and Costa Mesa location (near Playa Mesa) literally right before the pandemic in 2020, 14 locations across LA, OC, and San Diego have established Breakfast Republic as a stable Southern California business, and a solid place for breakfast and brunch fare.
Breakfast Republic’s menu, branding, and decor firmly establish the concept as a traditionally American-focused restaurant with mild Mexican influences. In addition to flavored pancakes ($10 to $13.50 for three), french toasts ($10 to $14.50), omelets or scrambled eggs ($13.50 to $17.25), and eggs benedict ($15 to $22), the menu includes chilaquiles ($16), breakfast burritos ($19), steak and eggs ($26.50), and a couple of sandwiches ($14.75 to $16.75). Sides of sausage, bacon, potatoes, veggies, and fruit range from $5 to $8 – and that’s basically it for food choices. The second side of a single-page, laminated menu card focuses solely on coffees ($3 to $6.75), alcoholic drinks including prosecco, mimosas, bloody marys, beer, and cocktails ($7 to $13.25), non-alcoholic drinks ($3.50 to $5.25), and merch.
Because we wanted to directly compare this place with Snooze and Stacks, we focused on pancake and french toast variations, opting for the restaurant’s Rooster Flights – a cool idea that lets you mix and match “any three french toast or pancakes” for $21.50. On the pancake side, we opted for Oreo cookie and strawberry cheesecake from the regular menu, plus an unusual limited-time special of Cafe de Olla coffee pancakes. For french toasts, we chose the Elvis-inspired Mr. Presley, s’mores, and banana split. Each flight arrived on an oversized plate with chunks of porcelain missing from the sides, an atypically ugly sign of neglect given the restaurant’s obvious efforts at clean, lightly amusing branding.
The rub is that almost all of the pancake and french toast variations were only okay, most similar to items we’ve enjoyed at Snooze, but not as good. While the french toast options were loaded with expected toppings – marshmallows, chocolate, and graham on the s’mores, bananas, peanut butter, and tiny bacon bits on the Mr. Presley – the toast itself was bland, and none of the ingredients really popped. On the pancake side, the Cafe de Olla pancakes were absolutely smothered in a thick layer of mascarpone cheese that overwhelmed any coffee flavor, with no evidence of the “crispy buñuelo strips” that were supposed to be on top; strawberry cheesecake pancakes were barely distinguishable from plain pancakes with sliced strawberries. Only the Oreo pancake stack, obviously chocolate infused, overloaded with vanilla cream, and covered in crumbled cookies, really lived up to its billing.
Unexpectedly, the highlight of our meal was a Mexican mocha latte ($6.75) that nicely balanced coffee with strong chocolate, cinnamon, and vanilla cream flavors. We also tried Cocky 12 ($5), a coffee ice cube with a “highly caffeinated extraction” cold brew that tasted like otherwise undiluted Chameleon, not bad but nothing special, as well as a prosecco mimosa ($11). Breakfast Republic offers mimoso options ranging from orange juice or cranberry to grapefruit, chamango, and guava, so we chose lychee to pair with the Italian-style champagne; the resulting flute was perhaps 1/3 lychee syrup and 2/3 inexpensive prosecco, not bad but not great.
Our Breakfast Republic meal wasn’t good enough to consider a second visit, but it wasn’t terrible, either; there were only a couple of items we would re-order if we wound up here again. While not locally owned, Snooze strikes us as a better version of virtually the same concept, and more likely to win our future business.
Stats
Price: $-$$
Service: Table
Open Since: 2015 (San Diego), 2019 (OC)
Addresses
4213 Campus Dr. Suite P166B
Irvine, CA 92612
949.379.7177
410 E. 17th St.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
949.691.3055
Instagram: @breakfastrepublic