Photos by Gabriel Radley
The crackling sausage and steaming biscuits on the Welcome Diner griddle are not an atypical vision. The nine-seat bar and miniature kitchen are full of chatter and southern comfort food, and when the food halts the conversation, soul music pipes in to fill the lull.
The only difference between this scene and any other meal at Welcome Diner is that it took place at 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 20, and it’s the first brunch of the season.
Welcome Diner’s weekend brunch is back in session after a summer hiatus. In the past, brunch season ran from October until May when temperatures were solidly low enough for guests to utilize the diner’s outdoor seating, but it begins early this year due to high demand. The restaurant will maintain its late-night hours, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., Tuesday through Sunday, and serve brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends.
General Manager Wayne Coats explained the change in format from the last brunch season, when the menu switched from brunch to dinner immediately at 3 p.m. and remained that way until midnight.
“It was challenging because the menus and cocktails were different,” Coats stated. “It was a challenge to switch the entire line and bar over.”
This year, the staff will take a two-hour break to prepare for the late-night dinner hours, exchanging tomato creole Bloody Marys and fried egg sandwiches for whiskey cocktails and pulled-pork french fries. Some menu items, like Welcome Diner’s biscuit sandwiches, are available at both meals, accented with mushroom gravy in the morning and a buffalo chicken patty at night.
The night owl hours serve members of the downtown arts community, particularly those who don’t finish work until late at night. Kenny Fajardo works down the street at Black N Blue Tattoo, and finds himself at Welcome Diner at least once a week.
“I was just informed last week (about brunch) by the staff,” Fajardo said at dinner two nights before brunch returned. He plans on indulging in both the dinner and brunch menus, ordering before and after work.
“I don’t mind coming in early just to get some good food,” he said. “It’s a smart business move.”
Coats says the diner’s hours are made with other downtown workers in mind, particularly those in food service.
“When maintaining these late night hours, something really exciting is our brothers and sisters who work at other restaurants get an opportunity to…get taken care of and eat quality food and drinks rather than swinging by Jack in the Box on the way home,” Coats said.
To Coats and the rest of the staff, it’s crucial that other members of the community get to enjoy all downtown Phoenix has to offer.
Coats predicts brunch traffic won’t reduce the number of nighttime guests. Historically, Welcome Diner has consistently passed projected sales numbers, largely in part to strong social media presence and technological word-of-mouth. However, Coats feels the team is ready for the demand. “We’re preparing for busy service, every service, from open to close,” he said.
“Brunches here are always poppin’,” said team member John Luther Norris in agreement. “You can count on that.”
Norris remembers one New Years Day when owner Michael Babcock came to his door, looking for people to help serve the brunch line that extended out the diner’s perimeters and into the street.
“We had to wash and reuse dishes right away to keep up with demand,” Norris said.
To maintain a good environment for guests and staff alike, the Welcome Diner team will be serving the populace in two groups, one working the mornings and the other the evenings. The morning team have dealt with the hectic brunch rush before, while the night service team are willing to stay alert and energized until 4 a.m., which is often when Welcome Diner staff finally leave for the night.
Line cook Jose Jimenez says the constant activity requires him to be alert and in control of everything he’s cooking and serving. Welcome Diner’s kitchen may be small, but that doesn’t make it any easier to navigate. In his 20 years in the industry, Jimenez says, he’s never been in a kitchen as small and active as Welcome Diner’s.
“I like to say I’ve got my dancing shoes on,” Jimenez said in a brief moment between brunch orders. At this point in the morning, he had fried half a dozen eggs and cooked everything from andouille sausage to grit cakes to kale. He doesn’t have a favorite dish to prepare: “I’ll cook anything, I don’t care,” he said. “It’s about making it good.”
The dinner and brunch specials often come from the minds of the staff, such as the No Way Jose burger that began as the sandwich Jimenez made himself after shifts and is now a permanent menu fixture. Brunch specials will begin soon as the Welcome Diner team experiments with new seasonal menu items.
Fajardo said he hopes the chorizo macaroni and cheese from previous dinner specials manifests in a breakfast format someday, but he’ll also keep his fingers crossed for more traditional breakfast fare.
“If they did their own waffles, that’d be huge,” he said, describing the various toppings that could fill a “Welcome Waffle’s” honeycomb texture. “You can only do so much to a pancake.”
The first brunch of this season was also the first Welcome Brunch for guest Riki Kimling, who has lived in the Garfield Historic District for only three months but already comes to the diner on a regular basis. For her first brunch, Kimling ordered the Holy Puerco, an egg and barbecue pulled pork layered onto a cheddar grit cake with hash browns on the side. “I’ve never had it before,” she said nervously while waiting for her food.
The dish seemed to satisfy. When asked to describe the Holy Puerco after her first few bites, Kimling responded by grinning and looking me in the eyes as she ate another large forkful. No words were necessary.
The atmosphere at Welcome Diner is as much a community staple as the food, for guests and staff. “Here, at the end of the day, we can all just sit down and have a beer, and it’s genuine,” said Jimenez.
Kimling agreed that Welcome Diner is an excellent place to start the day.
“Good food, good drinks, good people,” she said. “That’s this place.”
Contact reporter at hattiejhayes@gmail.com
