Awaken Your

By James Houck Photography by Stephen Buchanan

Baltimore staple since longtime restaurateur Eddie Dopkin opened the original location in the Roland Park burb in 2005, Miss Shirley’s Café established it reputation in short order as an endearing original featuring crafty recipes, southern- and locally-influenced fare, casual yet refined dining, and as the go-to restaurant for stick-to-your-ribs breakfast. Paying homage to namesake Shirley who was known for “her sassy charm and sheer joy of preparing dishes for catered celebrations in the community,” makes for a pretty cool backstory as well. Within a decade, second, third, and fourth locations popped up. And it’s the Annapolis eatery where our dining adventure takes flight.

For this early-fall outing, I brought the appetites of the immediate family, ensuring a full range of menu items would be sampled…and finished. And on a Sunday with sunshine, mild temps, a gentle breeze—that is, very good weather—we anticipated that, yes, we wouldn’t be the only ones out and about in Downtown Annapolis or congregating at Miss Shirley’s for a mid-morning meal. So it was upon arrival…a crowd gathered outside the main entrance enlisting themselves with the hostess for seating indoors or out (there’s a small batch of tables on the sidewalk). Our wait time, about one hour. Fair enough. We preemptively walked off a few calories along West Street and Murray Hill before returning and claiming our booth inside.

Busy, busy, busy can only begin to describe the buzz inside Miss Shirley’s on a Sunday morning. Servers were dashing to and fro the back kitchen with sizzling plates and temptations—smatterings of eggs, hash, meats, waffles, pancakes, libations, sweet treats, and savory nibbles. All of it conjuring that heavenly, nostalgic diner aroma you can almost taste. And we were about to taste it all… but first, another bit of a wait, giving us more than enough time to comb the menu. When our server finally arrived to take our orders, the pace quickened as drinks, appetizers, refills, main plates, and more refills packed our table faster than we could finish. Not a bad thing; just proof that when you order the farm, this farm delivers!

To wet our whistles, we played tame and stuck with the usual suspects: coffee and juices. I will say the coffee—roasted by Chesapeake Bay Roasting Company—not only tastes great as a balanced breakfast blend with a hint of French darkness, but each sip supports organic, local, and fair trade, and environmental sustainability. But if you’re in the mood for something that hits a little harder, Miss Shirley’s offers a fleet of morning cocktails—with names such as Kentucky Strawberry Lemonade, Apple Cider Mimosa, Spicy Shirley, and many more—that’ll surely awaken your tastebuds and put a glint in your eye.

To get our taste testing party started, we chose Breakfast Fried Deviled Eggs and Everything But the Bagel Cream Cheese Biscuits. Yes, that’s a mouthful to say. It’s also a darn good mouthful with each bite. Take your pick. Both were stupendous flavor combos. The eggs were halved and fried, then topped with the house egg mix, tiny crumbles of turkey sausage, cheddar cheese shavings, a touch of green onion, tablespoons of Chesapeake chicken sausage gravy, and dusted with the ever-iconic Old Bay seasoning. They’re like giant morsels of umami deliciousness with both unique and familiar flavors, and a variety of textures, all intermingling in some cosmic breakfast dance.

And the biscuits…a highlight for anyone who loves an everything-style bagel. These were buttery biscuits amplified with the classic everything seasoning—poppy and sesame seeds, garlic, onion, and salt—topping each, with small gobs of cream cheese baked within. Each pull apart of a biscuit revealed a moist and flaky interior. They immediately satiated our tastebuds.

Picking a main plate for breakfast at Miss Shirley’s is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel—you can’t miss here. You simply can’t. The house specialties might as well be a hall of fame: Chicken ’N Cheddar Green Onion Waffles, Get Your Grits On (shrimp and grits), Coconut Cream Stuffed French Toast, and the list goes on. I chose the Gravy Train Southern Skillet because, apparently, I wanted to try everything on one plate. My wife chose the “sandwich of the month,” the Smoky Baja Breakfast Burrito. And the kids each went for the Half Dollar Pancake Kids Box, featuring their choice of pancakes (chocolate chip, of course), fruit, scrambled eggs, and yogurt.

The kids are easily pleased, so large, compartmentalized boxes filled to the brim with the mentionables above had them giddy and I concur on how tasty and fresh everything within was—pancakes with chocolate morsels of sweetness. Yes! Chunks of fresh pineapple. Yes! Pillowy scrambled eggs. Yes! Dad always sneaks a few bites of his own. It’s Dad Law.

Sitting in front of me, on the other hand, was a mountain of Miss Shirley’s all-stars within a deep-dish skillet—still sizzling and hot to the touch. Make no mistake—the Gravy Train Southern Skillet is a lot of food—a smorgasbord in and of itself. Large helpings of both creamy stone-ground grits and collard greens create the foundation in the skillet upon which fried buttermilk chicken tenders, one of those house-made everything biscuits, and sliced ham is built—all smothered with the house sausage gravy, cheddar cheese, a sunny-side-up egg, and dusted with Cajun spice. I just dove in, seemingly getting a bit of everything with each forkful. All of it perfectly delicious together. It’s the epitome of stick-to-the-ribs. Just roll me out of the place when done.

My wife was smarter than I (her eyes were not bigger than her stomach), thus ordering the breakfast burrito. Still large, but manageable as a hand-held filled with scrambled egg, potato/ onion hash browns, chorizo sausage, spinach, and cheddar. The sides of Pico de Gallo and sour cream contributed the “Baja” flair. A pleasing dish that didn’t skimp on any ingredients.

And that was that—by meal’s end, we were totally infused with all-things breakfast. Full of scrumptious food; full of smiles. A stringer server solely devoted to presenting the bill, capturing quick payment, and sending you along your merrily way, visited our booth, thus signaling the end of this outing. Overall, I felt the atmosphere had great energy, the food had just enough culinary prowess to surprise us, and the price points were fair. And though our initial wait time felt longer than our actual meal, the anticipation added to the experience.