Bickford's: Not Just a Breakfast Joint
Written: Jan 12 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: weekday breakfast special, excellent side dishes, dinner plates a good deal, some 24 hour locations
Cons: normal breakfast menu expensive, late night menu breakfast only, sometimes has bad service
The Bottom Line: Bickford's is a fine choice for weekday breakfasts or for homestyle dinners but don't expect gourmet food.
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| quasar's Full Review: Bickford's |
When I first moved to the Boston area I lived in a suburb called Woburn (some of you may have heard of it from the movie A Civil Action). I lived on the non-industrial side of town, near Burlington. Because my area was fairly residential there weren't a lot of stores or restaurants within walking distance. The closest place to get a bite to eat was a Bickford's just over the town line in Burlington. It was only about 3/4 of a mile from my apartment but there were no sidewalks on the street for much of the distance making the walk unpleasant in the summer and impossible in the winter.
I felt kind of silly taking the bus for 3/4 of a mile, but I did so often. Not only was Bickford's convenient, but they had good food, generally good service, large portions, and they were affordable. That's a pretty nice combination and it kept me coming back again and again.
Eventually I moved closer to the city so I could be near a T station and have a lot more stuff within walking distance. Now I have my choice of a lot of different restaurants when I feel the urge to dine out. However, there isn't a Bickford's within walking distance so I don't go that often now.
There are over 60 Bickford's in New England and quite a few of them are in the Northern suburbs of Boston. I've eaten in five of them. They all have the same menu and the same general decor, although the actual restaurant layouts vary quite a lot. Think IHOP and you get the picture.
Like IHOP, Bickford's considers themselves primarily a pancake house but they serve excellent sandwiches and meals for lunch and dinner. In truth they have an excellent selection of breakfast dishes but they're all really expensive. Breakfast at Bickford's is a treat rather than something you can afford on a regular basis. The omelets are served with your choice of either three pancakes or hashbrowns and toast and run between $5.99 and $6.99. Their Western omelet is very good and filling and the pancakes large, light, and fluffy, but I still have a problem paying $6.99 for an omelet and some pancakes. A simple egg, toast, and hashbrown breakfast now costs $3.99 and hot drinks generally run $1.29 each.
They do have a decent a la carte breakfast menu and some of those prices aren't bad if you want to add an extra to your meal. Hashbrowns only cost $0.99, for instance, so if you get an omelet with pancakes and still want hashbrowns it's not that much of an additional financial hardship.
The time to go for breakfast is between 7am and 11am on weekdays. During these hours, Bickford's offers a breakfast special - 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, and your choice of 2 strips of bacon or 2 sausage links for $2.49. Although perhaps not quite enough food to fill you if you start out hungry, this is still a respectable breakfast and much more affordable than the regular menu items.
These days I am most likely to go to Bickford's for a nice weekday breakfast with my father when he visits. We've often gone on my way to work on days when he dropped me off or before he leaves to head back to New York at the end of a visit. It gives us a chance to relax a little, have one more meal together, and it sends him off with some food in his stomach so he doesn't have to stop right away.
When I lived near the Burlington Bickford's I was much more likely to go for lunch or dinner than breakfast. In addition to burgers and traditional deli-type sandwiches (all served with french fries), Bickford's has excellent chili and french onion soup. They also offer a rotating schedule of another soup but I've found these to be very hit or miss. Some are terrible and others very tasty. I didn't have the sandwiches very often but they were generally very good when I did partake.
The real highlights are the dinners. In addition to two or three daily specials, Bickford's offers about 12 dinner plates on the regular menu. Ranging from meatloaf to pot roast to roasted chicken, these are all homestyle meals served with your choice of two side dishes. I never had a meal I didn't like, but the turkey (available one day a week as a special) and the chopped steak meals were particularly wonderful. Unfortunately the chopped steak meal is no longer on the menu. This deletion is a big reason why I don't go to Bickford's for dinner much anymore - my father almost always ordered the chopped steak and now that I'm not within walking distance I rarely go to the restaurant without him. The meals start at $6.99 and run all the way to $10.99 for seafood choices.
Even more than the main dishes, the side dishes are wonderful. They give big heaping portions of creamy mashed potatoes, lightly cooked fresh carrots, fresh corn, steamed broccoli, and a few other choices. One thing to note is that they don't give you gravy with the mashed potatoes unless you explicitly ask for it and even then they don't give a lot. If you're a gravy lover you'll probably need to ask for extra gravy.
If you're feeling particularly hungry or if you really want a salad with your meal you can add a small garden salad and a scoop of vanilla ice cream to your meal for an extra $1.50. I'm very picky about lettuce (I once got food poisoning from bad lettuce so I have a good excuse) and I've not been terribly thrilled with their salads the few times I've chosen this extra.
Bickford's also has a small selection of appetizers and some interesting desserts. I've never had any of them, but I can tell you that their onion rings are superb (they used to give you a few onion rings with the chopped steak meal).
Bickford's is very much the type of place you go with your family for good food at reasonable prices (except at breakfast time). Interestingly their busiest time is during Sunday breakfast. If you want to splurge on a nice breakfast out be prepared for a wait and for very slow service. The rest of the time I've rarely had much of a wait. I don't think I've ever had to wait more than 15 minutes for dinner and often I'll get seated right away. The service the rest of the time varies quite a bit. In general it's good but not spectacular, but I've had some waitresses screw up orders and not do a great job fixing things and had problems getting drink refills at times. At the Bickford's in Burlington there were two waitresses who I avoided like the plague. As long as I got someone else the service was fine. Similarly, at the Bickford's in Medford (the one closest to my current apartment and the place we usually go for breakfast now) there's one waitress we've had problems with but everyone else has been fine.
Many Bickford's are open 24 hours a day. Unfortunately they stop serving dinner at 10PM (depending on the location) and start serving strictly breakfast. I can understand offering breakfast items during late night hours, but I'd really like to have the opportunity to order dinner until at least midnight. If they had dinner available for a few hours after the other restaurants close it would really be a differentiating factor. Unfortunately they don't.
Bickford's is by no means the perfect restaurant but it's certainly serviceable and worth an occasional visit. It has pretty good food at reasonable prices (for everything but breakfast). I'd recommend it for a nice cheap breakfast on weekday mornings or for good filling dinners during lunch and dinner time.
Recommended:
Yes
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