John Street Cafe

Fantastic ambiance accompanied by very friendly staff… the fold is amazing i had the goat cheese omelet and it was hands down the freshest thing ive ever eaten

When up early on a weekend this is a cool breakfast spot I can walk to. I like the atmosphere and the food is tasty. The menu is small but it’s breakfast, i know what I like. Toast here is great which is important to me. Hazelnut and black currant Pancake was excellent albeit pricey at above 7 dollars a la carte. Big enough to share tho! I’ll be back when I’m feeling like spending for a quality breakfast outside my own kitchen.

Great place for breakfast — they also serve lunch/​dinner but I have yet to try those. The menu is simple and delicious. The Bacavo omelette is amazing! And the filbert pancake? Yes please! We’ve eaten here many times, and only had questionable service once but it appeared they were just short staffed, so we have no complaints about the staff. Everyone has been nice and accommodating.
To me the prices are a tad on the steep side, but the portions are big so one meal could easily become two.

Great local St. John’s café really fresh comfort food!

What a sweet little café. I loved the grilled tuna salad, it was lovely.

New owners with new & expanded hours! After enjoying John Street for breakfasts and nice lunches we tried Friday night dinner. We were pleased with the interesting bar offerings and my RED SNAPPER — the Bloody Mary with Gin was peppery and good. Daily specials and pasta specials make for a good entrée. One guy in our group had a dinner salad and was very pleased. The potato leek soup of the day was thick & very flavorful. Service was prompt and friendly, Highly recommend this place.

Love this place! We’ve been frequenting this restaurant since we moved to the St. John’s neighborhood two years ago. The food is top notch! I love the local, friendly environment and the service is on point. You can tell they out a lot of effort into each plate and they have something for everyone. I love their pancakes and the bacavo omelet. Oh, I can’t forget to mention the jam! It’s maybe my favorite part of breakfast. Plus, we just found out THEY ARE OPEN FOR DINNER NOW. We asked to peak at the menu when we had breakfast this am and it looks amazing. St. John’s café twice in one day. It’s going to happen ;)

The food is really good, the portions are generous, but they don’t have a lunch menu on the weekend. There is a big difference between breakfast being available all day and mandatory breakfast. Mandatory breakfast regardless of the time of day really sucks.

Great food, nice space… only reason not five stars is that the dining room was very chilly and it took a long time for the food to arrive while it was not busy at all.
The food was very good. For us the toast and raspberry and black currant jam on the table was the star of the meal. I would eat a whole loaf if I could!

Overpriced, fruit bowl for $ 9??? The $ 12 omelets were pretty good but not worth it. Terrible decorations on the wall, random baskets and coasters hung up…

Old feel diner with great food. This place seems to be a bit of a hidden gem in downtown. The pancakes were huge! Like the size of a frying pan. The didn’t skimp on the meat in the omelet either. The price was great. The waitress was nice but the reason it gets 4 out 5 is because she didn’t refill our waters or ask if we wanted more milk when our glasses were empty. We will definitely be going back.

HUGE great pancakes! So Good! Also, a side of bacon is about 5 thick-​cut pieces!
Pretty good bang for your buck.

One if our favorite spots, tasty omelets and brunch items. Could be a bit less expensive, but worth paying a few bucks more for better food than any other breakfast place that I know of in St. Johns.

Stopped by this place on a Sun afternoon. It was surprisingly quit with plenty of free tables. Server was nice and helped us out immediately. The food was super tasty with huge portions and coffee was good. Will definitely come here again the black current and hazelnut pancakes are gigantic and really good.

Came here for breakfast one day. The coffee is SO good! One of the best I’ve had and good enough to drink black! Portions were large, lots of crispy bacon and gluten free bread ($ 1 extra). Prices were higher than a usual café/​diner, but is proportional to the amount of food you get. Nice and spaced out and has a relaxing atmosphere! They aren’t open every day; so check their hours before you go.

After going to almost all of the restaurants on this street, my boyfriend and I ended up here. We are both vegetarians and we each LOVED our dish. Thumbs up!

I wish I had a place like this to have breakfast in, close to where I live.
A friend took me here for breakfast and it was lovely: great coffee (free refills), and a wonderful omelette (cilantro with black beans, Monterey jack cheese and a spicy green salsa) with original fresh ingredients, served with rye toast, jam and fried potato. My friends were equally impressed with their food as well,
All polished off with good service — what more could one want?

Update: The new owners of John Street Café seem to have ironed out some wrinkles and have almost reached the level of quality from days past. A little cutting corners on quantity of expensive portions, e.g. Cheese seems to be the new norm. Also, the men’s bathroom consistently is dirty — even when they first open at 7 AM. I asked about this and was told it is shared with another business and gets dirty at night. Guess what: you can clean it again before you open in the morning.
I am glad the new owners are pulling it together. Quit skimping and clean the bathrooms and they will be back at 5 stars.

I really liked the John Street Café. I just didn’t realize how big the portions were going to be. The food was good, but I marked it down to 4 stars for a few reasons.
1) Fake syrup. If you give me Aunt Jemima, then you get marked down automatically. Get the good stuff and nobody gets hurt.
2) The entry is a little confusing. Not a big deal, but I would lay it out with newbies in mind. A little signage goes a long way.
3) The portions were unexpected. I would have shared with my wife if I had known just how big the meals would be.
Given all that, the food was really good for a reasonable price. Not as cheap as IHOP, but the food was ten times better. The small café ambiance was nice as well. The service was good and the wait was reasonable, especially since the restaurant was full when I got there. We will come back the next time we are in St. Johns looking for something breakfasty.

The breakfast is so fantastic, Perfectly amazing omelets on the menu and they always have a special one that is superb. I usually get the Brie scramble but have yet to be disappointed by an egg dish.
The service is delightful and the perfect amount of attentive. Darla, my favorite waitress, is an absolute gem with just the right combination of sass and nurture.
The lunch leaves me underwhelmed, so I always try to arrive and order before 11:00 AM.
This place features one of the most beautiful and relaxing little garden patios in Portland that easily makes a summer morning stretch into a summer afternoon.

I’m glad my fiancé and I checked this place out. We walked past about 3 other breakfast places because this place seemed the most clean, had air conditioning, and a tasty looking menu.
Service was quick and friendly, and there is a lot of seating. Even though our name was 5 on the list, we got seated within five minutes.
I ordered a coffee and the special of the day, corned hash with toast and two poached eggs. I love corned hash. I even like the shitty kind from a can occasionally, but this was awesome! Big pieces of meat and two lovely eggs. It was a very filling breakfast for only $ 11.
My guy got the eggs, toast, potatoes and bacon breakfast. It seemed a little spendy to me for what it was, however, the bacon was so big and thick, and they give you a ton. You definitely get your value here!

Great locals kind of place. We went since they had the major thing we were craving for breakfast: OMELETTE. Oh yeah. So much variety and simplicity that really allows the ingredients shine through. I ordered the goat cheese and spinach omelette while my companion ordered the italian sausage one. My goat cheese dish was amazing; the goat cheese was creamy and a perfect, tangy compliment to the eggs, spinach, red peppers, and avocado on top. His dish of eggs with italian sausage with all sorts of other goodies thrown in, I was told, was pretty stellar.
The potatoes were okay; better than the stringy hash browns but lacked something. The wheat toast and their homemade jelly was AWESOME. I almost ordered an extra side of toast just to eat more jelly.