Kingside Diner Takeaway. A high-stakes breakfast that's more straight than flush. The Standard Breakfast earns a respectable 7.8 / 10 on taste but is quite pricey. $13 for eggs, toast, and hashbrowns because it's in the Central West End. The hashbrown anchored the plate. I got a side of bacon, which was top-notch. The pancakes disappointed, earning a 4.5 / 10 pancake score.
One of the better breakfasts in St. Louis.
Service was speedy at 11 am on a Wednesday. It's much busier at peak times on weekends, so expect a bit of a wait for a table then. The entire diner has a playing card theme, from the logo at the front to the king and queen on the bathroom door labels. Metered street parking. I could have avoided paying for parking if I wanted to park five blocks away.
Kingside Diner Experience Summary
I had been eating a lot of, new to me, Asian, pizza, and Mexican food lately. But my kids really wanted to go to the Olivette Diner a couple of weeks ago, and I've been on a search for the best breakfast since.
My travels this day took me to the Kingside diner after taking in the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis a little ways down the road. The diner is also super close to the Cathedral Basillica.
After finding paid parking down a side street, I stepped into the diner, ready for breakfast for lunch.
I went with what they call the Make Your Move, chess pun intended. The closest thing I could find to my Standard Breakfast, except this version comes with bacon. Even though the math shows that my Standard Breakfast ($13) would have been $1 cheaper, I splurged for the bacon.
Good thing I did. Another excellent bacon practitioner, the Kingside Diner, calls checkmake with the quality of their bacon. It's smokey, fatty, and delicious without being overly greasy.
The Standard Breakfast earned a very solid 7.8 / 10 on the backs of the potatoes. The potatoes hit the spot with an excellent crunch and a pillowy inside.
The pancakes were a big miss ($4 / pancake). At 4.1 / 10, they were thin and dense. They didn't beat IHOP, never mind The Flood Line.
Service was fast and friendly. At 11 am on a Wednesday, I didn't come at peak brunch time. When I was last here in early 2019 on a weekend morning, there was a bit of a wait.
Being in the Central West End, everything felt expensive. The Standard Breakfast costs almost twice as much as the Olivette Diner or Southwest Diner.
The Food At Kingside Diner
I've been getting my Standard Breakfast across diners and breakfast spots in America since I was a kid. If you can make eggs, toast, and potatoes right, you're A-OK in my book.
The Kingside Diner delivers on taste for the Standard Breakfast, coming in at 7.8 / 10 on taste. The potatoes led the attack. A generous portion of hashbrowns, with an extremely crunchy top that led to a pillowy inside. It had an ode to butter without being overpowered by it.
Exactly my kind of potatoes.
The eggs were a tad over-buttered for me, but they did their job. I don't have any distinct memory of them besides complimenting the potatoes.
The single piece of toast seemed lonely on its plate. Begging for another piece to be with it, probably the smallest portion of toast I've ever had with a Standard Breakfast. Not overly buttered, it had a high-quality store-bought look to it.
But not sure why it was only one piece.
On to the queen of the meal, the bacon.
My god, do they make a great piece of bacon. A subtle smokey flavor oozes out of a thick, crumbly piece of bacon. A generous portion size makes it even better as a toss-in on the $14 Make Your Move over my Standard. The bacon ended up being the best part of the meal.
I will say the bacon lacked the crunch of the Original Pancake House's bacon, but the unique smokiness more than made up for the texture. To be clear, I'm not complaining about the taste or texture; it's just a nitpick on how it could have been even better.
But I am complaining about the pancakes. My notes from the meal were "flat, dense, chewy, sticks to the roof of your mouth." That's not what a pancake should be. Coming in at a 4.1/10, the pancakes at IHOP outclass these by a decent margin. Each pancake costs $4, but you can order them a la carte like I did.
Of note, I didn't get coffee ($3.5) on this day. Also, the old men at the bar behind me were all raving about the hamburgers.
Kingside Diner Atmosphere And Miscellaneous
Kingside does a great job of weaving in chess puns across the restaurant. It's full of chess allusions, from menu items to the placards outside of the bathroom.
The service was fast and friendly on this rainy Wednesday morning. They have a big seating area in the back with tables, but I sat at the window overlooking the north patio area. The patio would make for a fun outside brunch on a warmer day. Several other women were eating lunch alone next to me.
Come to think of it, three or so men were also at the bar behind me, eating alone. I'm not sure if they're regulars or people like me going for a quick, good bite to eat around brunch time. It seems a bit pricey to be a regular kind of place. $3.5 for coffee and $13 for a Standard Breakfast would put the bill at over $20, which would make it a splurge territory.
I think that'd need to be closer to $10 for people here to be regulars, so they must all share a passion for finding the best breakfast around St. Louis, like me.
Parking At Kingside Diner
Parking is a bit of a pain because you're in the Central West End. If I didn't want to pay for parking, I would have had to park about a ten-minute walk away. You could get lucky and find it closer or on a weekend when the meters are off.
I ended up parking for $2 across from El Burro Loco and Clementine's to avoid walking in the rain.
Kingside Diner Receipt
