Rae's

A staple of Santa Monica for decades and decades, Rae's @ 2901 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica CA 90405, 310-828-7937, serves old school breakfast off the grill. With most breakfast plates, you get a choice of toast or biscuits. Wow, is that a choice? Biscuits every time! Gravy for an extra 60 cents? Why wouldn't you order the gravy? What can you buy these days for 60 cents? Not much.

The interior is very cool, the people are "swell", and the food is fresh and filling. If you finish your breakfast and are still there around 11 AM, please walk about a block east to McCabes guitar shop and browse a piece of music history.

One of my shinning moments at Rae's, in the mid 90's, I finished a huge breakfast and ordered the banana split and finished that. The waitress was really happy about that. There's nothing like making your server happy. She said not many people order the banana split for breakfast.