Category: American/New American Restaurants

Today, Kirk and Cathy get a vacation from this blog; instead, Ed (from Yuma) has a long post about a place that's been around even longer.

Brownie's is an institution. Founded in 1946, it's almost the oldest restaurant in town – it’s even older than me. Its original and distinctive standalone building is like a landmark on 4th Avenue:

And this is the view from the parking lot side:

The interior includes a counter area, one large table area, a smaller back room, and booths along the north and south walls and has miscellaneous decorations: some American flags, a stuffed deer head, drawings of John Wayne, Jimmy Dean, and Elvis (among others), artificial plants, and lots of historical pictures of Yuma, including this photo of Yuma High School when it was located in the abandoned territorial prison:

Students and sports teams at Yuma High are still fondly called Criminals. So, yes, folks here can say, "The best times of my life were the four years I was a Criminal."

On a summer weekday around 11:45 AM, there is plenty of open seating:

Most of the time, particularly around breakfast hours, Brownie's is packed:

The wait staff is extremely friendly, but also efficient and professional. Some servers specialize in seating customers, cleaning tables, and bringing beverages to the table; others take orders and bring out plates of food. The front of the menu fits the place perfectly:

So why haven't I blogged about Brownie's? Partly, I had already eaten at Brownie's a bunch of times before I ever met Kirk or even owned a camera; plus I assumed that damn near everybody in the Yuma area already knew about Brownie's, so what was the point?

But also a number of things that I had tried at Brownie's back in the day were underwhelming. The beef vegetable soup, chicken salad sandwich, and even a roast chicken dinner (when Brownie's was open in the evenings) were pretty much meh. The burgers were okay, but nothing to write home about – or even blog about. The side salads have always been ordinary at best, and their dressings don't taste homemade:

Recently, one of the salads even had a couple rotting leaves in it:

So why am I blogging about this restaurant now? Partly because Tina sometimes likes to go out for a weekend breakfast, and breakfasts are what Brownie's does best.

While the coffee here is pretty standard American diner coffee, it is always fresh and the cups are frequently topped off. You even get half and half though it comes in those little plastic packages:

Both Tina and I generally like their egg breakfast combos. For example, the inexpensive minced ham and eggs breakfast ($5.95):

There is abundant ham, the eggs are not overcooked, and hashbrowns were prepared extra crispy as requested. The little cup of salsa adds a nice local touch.

Similarly, the Brownie's special with ham ($7.95) is a good basic breakfast:

Another favorite with many people is the chicken fried steak and eggs:

On this day, however, the overworked kitchen didn't fry a good crust on the beef, so I have no photograph of the really good versions of the chicken fried steak. But most of the time, it is tasty. (Rich of Offbeat Eats likes it too).  

A little more unusual is the Ham and Eggs O'Brian ($7.95) with a ham slice, three eggs, and peppers and onions on top of hashbrowns:

For me, this combination actually works pretty well even though it gets pretty gloppy looking:

There are a number of omelet choices, but Tina and my favorite is the country omelet ($7.95):

The omelet itself contains sausage, cheese, and Ortega chilies all topped with Brownie's pretty decent country gravy – mmm, country gravy:

My only complaint about most of the egg breakfasts at Brownie's is that they come with toast:

It's not that the toast is bad – though it is very generic– it's that the jams and jellies are those little packets from Smucker’s:

I remember the old commercial "with a name like Smucker’s, it's got to be good," and maybe it once was good, but most of the little jellies these days are made from fruit juice, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, fruit pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate. Certainly doesn't sound like my grandmother's recipe. Grumble grumble.

So sometimes we will choose the "Country Boy" combination with sausage, eggs, and biscuits and gravy instead of hashbrowns and toast ($7.95). This picture shows the half-size portion with bacon and only one biscuit and gravy ($5.95):

Another way to evade toast is a waffle ($4.95 à la carte), served with syrup and soft butter. Pretty standard, but a nice non greasy, crusty surface and lots of little wells to hold the butter and syrup:

similarly tasty are the thick pancakes – here part of a hot cake, sausage, and egg special ($4.95):

One other treat on the menu are Walt Kammann sausages (available in an egg combo or $2.95 or one, $4.95 for two):

Walt Kammann brought this German style sausage recipe with him when he moved from Wisconsin to Yuma in 1934 to manage a pecan grove. A community minded individual, he served on the governing boards for the local hospital and college. Originally he and his family made these sausages for their personal consumption, but soon they were serving them at civic events, such as the annual Rotary Sausage Fry. While no longer made by the Kammann family, this is the traditional recipe – coarsely ground meat with no filler, well spiced with abundant black pepper:

In addition to the generally good breakfasts at Brownie’s, some of the lunch choices are also pretty tasty. Their version of the chili burger ($7.95) is a decent presentation of one of my favorite truck stop meals:

Covered with chopped onion and cheese, the Western-style chili with beans makes a great topping for the preformed hamburger patty. Nothing revolutionary here, just an old favorite fixed in a traditional way.

One nice touch is the sprinkling of seasoned salt on the otherwise undistinguished crinkle cut french fries:

Of course, sandwiches like the fried ham or the BLT that use breakfast ingredients are also good choices. In addition, the restaurant roasts its own beef and turkey. Therefore the French dip sandwich au jus ($6.95) comes with real jus:

While the French roll is nothing special, the warmed roast beef tastes real and beefy:

Just like the roast beef, the turkey is real roast turkey and is available as a dinner plate with veggie, potatos, stuffing and gravy:

or as an open faced sandwich with whipped potatoes and old-fashioned turkey gravy ($7.95):

Open faced, gravy covered sandwiches like these always bring back good memories of my 10 years in Columbus, Ohio.

The same roast turkey stars in Tina's favorite lunch at Brownie’s, the Big Bird sandwich ($7.50):

The generous portion of roast turkey on grilled sourdough is enhanced by bacon, tomato, and American cheese:

It tastes even better than it sounds.

I have grown fond of Brownie's over the years. Even though it is sometimes a bit hectic and the food is not always top notch, the restaurant has a real down home friendly environment that fits Yuma very well. The menu and food also remind me of the restaurant my parents owned and my mother managed back when I was in junior high and high school in Medford, Oregon. I must have washed thousands of dishes and chopped dozens of onions back then. Sometimes I even took orders and brought out food. Looking back 50 years, those seem like pretty good times, and I always did think washing dishes beat mowing lawns. Brownie’s is the kind of place that does bring back memories of 50 years ago – at least for those of us who have memories of 50 years ago.

Brownie’s Café, 1145 S 4th Ave, Yuma, AZ 85364, (928) 783-7911, open daily in summer from 6 – 2:30, longer hours in the winter.