Glass City Café exists on the fringe of Downtown, Uptown, and no town at all, at the corner of Jackson and 11th. It is a location without casual foot traffic; neither derelicts nor professionals have reason to pass their block. Glass City is a destination—a pancake nirvana in a Michelle Obama food desert. People find it when they need it, and need it when they find it. I recently found myself there for three meals within 24 hours.
Friday – 12:15pm
Weekdays are flanked by elected officials, corporate attorneys, city workers, and motivated creatives in a cafeteria power lunch. Diane Skahill, who has been a server at Glass City since 2008, remembers every customer’s favorite order. “No green peppers, right?” she asked me before I even had a chance to order my omelet. “No,” I said, smiling. Their menus are like phone books. Everybody gets them. Nobody uses them.
Steve Crouse opened Glass City Café in 2006. The building, originally opened as a restaurant and cigar shop in 1916, was an ideal fit for his antique collection. The walls are shelved with vintage Toledo memorabilia and hung with local art. “Just about everything in here is Toledo” Crouse told me. A Libbey Glass poster with a stretched world map hangs with the tagline “Second to None.”
Their menu is a mix of diner and deli food. Reuben sandwiches and homemade soups are served alongside French toast and hash browns. Custom orders are common, patrons aren’t afraid to make a meal their own when they visit Glass City. “People appreciate that we’re here.” said Crouse.
Saturday – 2:45am
I felt drunk just sitting there. Thirty minutes before, the place was empty aside from two uniformed workers eating sandwiches after a long shift. Then a couple musicians came in after a gig. Then the downtown bars closed, and every table filled.
Fresh-faced boys and girls laughed with each other across tables with dilated eyes. A haze of grease smoke and twilight funneled through the ceiling fans. Strangers exchanged phone numbers like salespeople at a business conference happy hour. A man sat at the counter and spoke quietly to his bag of potato chips.
I ordered a Haymaker: the World Wrestling Champion of breakfast dishes: a biscuit split open and topped with two sausage patties, two bacon strips, two eggs, cheese, home fries and then drowned in sausage gravy. Few can order it straight-faced without giggling or high-fiving their friends. The taste, though, isn’t funny at all. The bacon is crunchy, and the egg and cheese are perfectly gooey. The gravy and sausage add a nice, meaty sweetness. And the potatoes—well, why the hell not? I paid my bill and went home to a deep sleep.
Saturday – 11:30am
Only a few hours removed from the previous night’s zombie social hour, and the tables are completely full again. This time with families having brunch. Sunlight pours through the windows that were black the night before. The only familiar face is Danny Crouse, Steve’s son, who is still cooking as if he never took a break.
Plates of pancakes and eggs clank onto tables while the band, Old State Line, plays an acoustic set of American classics. Steve Crouse and his wife are music fans. They always have been. They love to attend bluegrass festivals, and for the past five years they’ve been holding “mini-concerts” inside their restaurant every Saturday morning.
The concerts are infinitely pleasant. Beginning your day with breakfast and acoustic folk is as soothing for a toddler as it is for a hangover. Glass City Café is essentially a large living room with an open kitchen carved out of it; a warm hearth surrounded by the city’s concrete confines. You may not know how you got there, but you’ll know why.
Dorian Slaybod is 27, a local attorney and happily living in Toledo.