Maxwell’s Café

Culver City | CA

| February 02, 2019 - maybe brunch time|

Playing on the speaker this morning was It’s Raining Men. Although there weren’t any hard-bodied hunks falling out of the sky…water was precipitating from the atmosphere. They only got it half wrong. Despite the mix-up, I was still looking forward to my chorizo breakfast burrito with well-done hash browns and homemade salsa.

Maxwell’s is my favorite place to be after a long Friday or Saturday night. I can saunter down Washington Boulevard after convincing myself it’s still breakfast if this is my first meal of the day with very little trouble. It’s the perfect ratio of exertion and human exposure to reward. If I’m lucky, I won’t even need to return to my hangover cave after tasting some of Maxwell’s forty-seven years of breakfast excellence.

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Given the unusually wet day and my late start, I didn’t have any trouble finding a seat at the counter. Had this been a beautiful summer morning, I would be just another name on the wait list. Like most mornings at Maxwell’s, I brought a book to distract me from the lack of company. On the reading list today was Murakami’s 1Q84. It’s the perfect read for someone who loves one thousand plus pages of unparalleled descriptive imagery and the occasional anime-inspired, fetish sex scene. In between sips of coffee and pages of Murakami, I took extra care to observe my surroundings. Weathered Pepsi advertisements, portraits of stern-looking men in suits, and paintings of ships…lots of ships coat the wood paneled walls, arranged like buckshot that had just been fired from a sawed-off twelve gauge. It reminds me of the type of diner you would stumble upon during a road trip – worn and confused about the current date, but charming.

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Between their breakfast burrito and famous garbage omelet, Maxwell’s satisfies all of my breakfast needs. There’s just something about a tortilla filled with greasy chorizo, scrambled eggs, warm black beans, melted jack cheese, pico de gallo, and guac that makes me feel like we’re not far off from world peace. Don’t even get me started on the well-done hash browns. Hardened and crispy like one giant potato chip; I’d pick the whole thing up and eat it with my hands if I wasn’t a gentleman and a scholar.

No matter the state I enter Maxwell’s in, I always leave feeling better. Go pay those hard-working people a visit and maybe catch up on some reading while you’re at it. You won’t be disappointed.