As soon as we moved to downtown St. Pete, we knew we’d have every type of restaurant at our fingertips that we could possibly desire.

However, we quickly found that on those lazy weekend mornings when we want to go out an end enjoy breakfast made for us, we had no solution. In fact, after trying quite a few breakfast restaurants, we were still unsatisfied.

To me, a good breakfast restaurant must be reasonably priced, have quick service, and the perfect grits. I had about given up on our breakfast search until one day, while sitting at the car wash at 22nd Ave and 9th St, I happened to look across the street to see Trip’s Diner.

It looked cute, and was busy- always a good sign. So of course when I got home I “urbanspooned” it and found nothing but rave reviews. Could it be that a great breakfast restaurant existed just a few blocks from our home for a year and we missed it?

I knew we just had to give it a try, and so we did. The wait wasn’t too bad for a sunday morning, and we were provided with fast and friendly service. After a quick glance at the menu, I was fixed on ordering the white cheddar grits and egg strata. My response after one bite of the grits was something to the effect of wanting to take a bath in them The strata has tomatoes, pesto, and pieces of croissant all baked to perfection and topped with decadent hollandaise. To die for.

I say all this to say…if you haven’t been to Trip’s Diner yet, you need to! I know there are many more visits to this neighborhood eatery in our future