Brickhouse Cafe

Brickhouse Cafe is a restaurant in South Beach open all day, that morphs throughout the day and throughout the week.  Although "cafe" is in the name, it most certainly isn't a traditional "cafe" at all.

For weekday breakfast, it is a very casual establishment.  You order at the register near the bar, and most people get their food to go, although there is seating.  They offer many different egg dishes, including a slew of variations on egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, along with pastries and coffee drinks.  Plenty of folks just stop in for a coffee, which I guess does make it rather cafe like?

Lunch is a sit-down affair with full table service, mostly featuring their extensive burger lineup.  Throughout the afternoon they stay open with a fairly expansive bar menu, including Happy Hour specials, and a slew of signature drinks.

Finally, there is dinner, which adds in more classic hearty entrees such as steak, salmon, and pork chops.  On the weekends, the first meal of the day is brunch, a hybrid of the breakfast and lunch menus, again with regular table service.  

The cafe has been in operation for as long as I've lived in the area, although never a place that gets a lot of fanfare, it clearly has staying power.

Update Review, 2021 Visits

My last visit to Brickhouse Cafe was in 2015 (see my original review!)  But 2021 was the year of COVID, and in my case, far more time spent in SF than I have in years, and, considerably more takeout.  And thus, one day, my desire to get out of the house a little lead me back.

Side note: Stuck doing a lot of pickup and delivery these days? Want to try some free food and new pickup or delivery services?  Here are some codes ...

Door Dash ($15 off, $5 each of your first 3 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]

Caviar ($20 off, $10 off your first 2 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]

Ritual ($6 off) [ Pickup only ]

Delivery.com ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]

Grub Hub ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]

Seamless ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]

Nextdish: ($10 off your first order) [ Delivery only ]

Allset ($5 off) [ Pickup only ]

Uber Eats ($20 off - use code eats-lejw5 at checkout) [ Pickup or delivery ]

I placed my order on delivery.com, and it was ready when I arrived, no issues encountered.

Nice Packaging.

To start, I just want to give a shout out to Brickhouse for nicely packaging with their logo stickers on the box sealing it.

Mixed Green Salad. $5.
Add Grilled Gulf Prawns.

"Simple mixed greens with radish, parmesan & extra virgin olive oil."

Not the most exciting order, but all I needed was a salad to go with some other leftovers I had at home.

To a salad, you can add grilled or fried chicken, ahi tuna, grilled prawns, bacon, or avocado for a fee.  I opted for the grilled gulf prawns, which turned out to be a serving of 4, freshly grilled (still warm when I picked up).

This was, as described, a simple salad, but nicely done.

Fresh mixed greens, juicy slices of radish.  I asked for parmesan and dressing on the side, both of which were easily honored.  I was happy to see the cheese was large shreds of parmesan.

The dressing was simple balsamic and oil oil, no option to change it, so I actually just used my own dressing at home as I wanted something more flavorful.

The grilled gulf prawns were certainly the star of the salad, and I'm glad I added them.  You never know what you'll get when you add on prawns, will they be tiny?  Tail on? Chewy? Properly cleaned? Seasoned in any way? Rubbery?

The answers for the grilled gulf prawns at Brickhouse are luckily all positive: larger size, nicely cleaned, tailed on, and well seasoned.  They were juicy, succulent, not chewy, although perhaps a tad underdone.

Overall, yes, just a simple salad, but ingredients were all quality.

***+.

Original Review, September 2015

Brickhouse Cafe has been around for a while, and I live nearby, but I hadn't ever visited until recently, when I saw that they accept payment via the Paypal app, and I was enjoying seeking out places with Paypal offers.

I only ever visited during the mornings, but I loved the biscuits enough to want to return for another meal service sometime.  In particular, I'm interested in their burgers, as the beef is sourced from the owner's own cattle ranch in Washington.  He also goes on annual salmon fishing expeditions and personally catches some of the seafood they serve.

The Space

Bar Area.

As I mentioned, they are open for continuous service all day long, so the bar I'm sure is a feature later in the day.  It was well stocked, and probably a great place for a happy hour drink and bite, but I've only visited in the morning when it was desserted

Seating.

Seating is varied and casual.  The entire space is bright, open, and airy, with a rustic feel due to all the wood.  Very comfortable and inviting.

The center of the room contains a huge communal table with high stools.  Booths and small tables make up the sides.  I didn't venture upstairs, but there is an open loft area with additional seating.

Beverages

Coffee Condiment Station.

The self-serve condiment station has all the classic sweeteners, including many types of non-sugar and sugar cubes, plus milk, but lacked any cinnamon or cocoa, which I always like to add in.

Decaf Coffee.  $3.

Coffee when you dine in is served in a huge metal mug.  It looked strange to me at first, but I quickly grew to love it.  I appreciated the heft of it, and the way it felt in my hand.

The coffee was fine, although it bad a bit of a strange sweetness to it, that I attribute to being rather stale decaf.  I'm guessing this is not a high volume item for them.

$3 for a cup of pre-brewed drip coffee was a bit high, even though the cup was large.  Interestingly, if you get it to go, it is only $2.50.  I would only get this again to compliment a meal, I certainly wouldn't seek it out.

Peppermint Mocha. $4.

Espresso beverages are also offered, but not in decaf.  So I "splurged", and went for the caffeine.  Since I was going all out, I made it a mocha.  And not just any mocha, a peppermint mocha.  Oh, and one topped with a fancy peppermint marshmallow.  Decadence.

Now, to step back, you probably know that I generally just drink black coffee or Americanos.  Milk and sugar are things I only add when the coffee tastes bad.  This style of milky drink, with extra flavors and sugars isn't really my style.  But it was cold out, and I wanted comfort, and decadence, in a cup.

It totally hit the spot.  I appreciated the generous amount of foam, although the bubbles were rather large, not exactly velvety smooth microfoam.  The drink was crazy sweet, and it would have been better with half as much peppermint and chocolate.  So the mocha itself ... not amazing, but I grew to appreciate it.

What was amazing however was the marshmallow.  I saw the barista pull it out, so I knew it was a Whole Foods brand peppermint marshmallow.  I've seen these by the registers at Whole Foods all winter, and I'm glad I got to try one.  Sweet, fluffy, and crazy minty.  I loved the marshmallow plain, but I really loved how it softened into the drink.

That said, I probably wouldn't get another of these, or if I did, I'd ask for it half sweet.  But really, I'd just ask for the Peppermint Mocha special, hold the mocha, just give me a cup of peppermint marshmallows.  Or I guess I could go buy them at Whole Foods myself.

$4 was a fine price for such a fancy drink.

Pastries

Breakfast pastries (croissants, scones, morning buns) are displayed near the register.  They are not house-made, but I wasn't able to determine where they came from.

Morning Bun.  $2.50.

I wanted a breakfast pastry to go with my coffee.  My choices were  sad looking croissants, a single scone, or a morning bun.  The morning bun immediately caught my eye.

Sadly, it was awful.  The exterior was crunchy, but not a pleasant crispy, it was just dry.  As was the inside, not moist, even in the very center, where a great morning bun is often soft and doughy.  There was some cinnamon between the folds, but not nearly enough.  The dusting of sugar on the outside also did not save it.

It was not offered to have it warmed up, the only other way I could imagine salvaging it.  Sadly, I didn't bother finishing this.

All pastries are $2.50, which is a fine price, and they also sell day olds for only $1.  But, I wouldn't even pay $0.50 for this!

Breakfast

Granola & Greek Yogurt with Fresh Fruit. $7.

Ojan stopped by Brickhouse one day to grab a snack, and of course, I demanded a bite, even though yogurt, fruit, and granola parfait was perhaps the most boring thing he possibly could have picked.

The granola on top was just toasted oats, no clumps, no nuts, no seeds, no dried fruit.  Pretty boring.  The yogurt was standard greek yogurt.  The "fresh fruit" was cantaloupe and honeydew cubes, plus chunks of pineapple, and raspberries, all fresh enough.

Quite boring and uninspired, but, I would have never ordered this.  $7 price was fine for a large parfait.

Side Dish: Buttermillk Biscuits $2.

The breakfast and brunch menus feature biscuits with sausage gravy and eggs.  I've been addicted to biscuits and gravy lately, and if I was getting a full breakfast, I certainly would have gone for that.

But I stopped by for another reason.  I had some leftover really delicious cheese sauce at home that I wanted to smother something with (it originally was used with gnocchi, and reminded me a bit of cheesy gravy, if that makes any sense).  Somehow, smothering a biscuit in this cheese sauce, along with some sauteed spinach, seemed like a great idea.  So I ordered a side of biscuit to bring home and use later.

I was a little surprised that it took a while for my biscuit to be ready.  It turned out, they serve the biscuits warm (unlike the morning bun, grrr).  Whoops.  Since I wasn't intending to eat it right away, I didn't need it warm.  But when I opened my box I was even more surprised.  Two whole biscuits!  Score!

Since I had two biscuits, I decided to try one right away.  After all, it was warm!  It was warm and fresh, sliced in half, and a bit toasty on the outside.  I liked the bit of crispness to the toasted exterior, but it was still perfectly moist inside and not at all dried out.  The winning element however was the buttermilk tang.  Such a great tang.  It crumbled nicely too.

The woman who gave me the biscuits told me she doesn't even think they need gravy or anything, she loves them just with butter, and I can totally see why.  These are just great biscuits!  I choose to use some jam on the one I ate on the spot, like with an English scone, but, they only have Smucker's basic strawberry jam and grape jelly at Brickhouse, neither of which did the biscuits any justice.

I think these biscuits would be great warm with some of my mom's strawberry jam and a little clotted cream.  And I think they'd be great with butter.  Or smothered in the sausage gravy as Brickhouse serves them.  They were also delicious with my cheesey-gravy sauce too, and I'll definitely consider getting this again.

$2 for a side of two biscuits was crazy reasonable.  $1 each?  Unreal.