I think there are few pleasures better than going to out for a leisurely breakfast on Saturday morning to a place where you know them and they know you.

For us, it's a place called the Breakfast Queen.

Are we witnessing a trend in the end of 24-hour places? Didn't Paper Moon stop serving round-the-clock not long ago? Are people economizing, dieting or sleeping?

I didn't realize that the Bel Loc was now closing at 11:30. We had so many bar closing breakfasts there back in the day. I guess the trend in driving to bars outside your neighborhood and then driving to breakfast haunts have been cut off due (for better or worse) to ending DUIs. Someone told me recently that someone my size will blow legally drunk after 2 glasses of wine. That's a pretty low alcohol limit to be at if that's true.

I'm glad the Bel Loc is still in business though and that the breakfast food and service are as fine as I remember.

Wow EL, I can't believe in all your years in Baltimore, you have never been to Bel-Loc! Going back a couple subjects ago, I think Bel-Loc epitomizes Baltimore - Good homestyle food at decent prices, old school waitresses who either call you hon or roll their eyes at you when you are drunk, and a crowd that ranges from people coming from church to people nursing hangovers. Speaking of the waitresses there, God bless them! I have been there on numerous occassions when a gaggle of drunk frat guys come in, and what those ladies had to deal with...I think I'd be in prison right now.

yes, the Bel-Loc is a Baltimore icon. Glad to hear its still open and has a thriving business going. Myself, I ate there only a couple of times (once, like Joyce, way late back in the day) and a couple of other times with an old girlfriend.

Each time, the food did not disappoint.

I've been to that diner just once and I'm not sure I'd go back, unless to try the breakfast. I had a (previously frozen) cheeseburger that left much to be desired, I'm not even sure I finished it.

When I've had breakfast at the Bel-Loc, the food was fine, the coffee awful. The first time, I thought maybe I'd gotten the dregs from the bottom of the pot. But the next visit, it was pretty much the same sludge. Sort of took the shine off the eggs-over-easy, sausage and hash browns, as tasty as they were.

Following up on Joyce's comment about drving to diners outside your area, I think it is quite normal not to visit a diner, even an institution like Bel-Loc, if it is more than a couple of miles from your house. It is a diner; it is not destination dining.

When I was a kid growing up in Harford County, my parents would take me to the Cloverleaf Diner in Aberdeen for a breakfast. I would normally get the scrapple and eggs. It was good, but I'm not going to drive 40 minutes from Cross Keys to a get a breakfast I could get a lot closer to home. I'm not going to drive 15 or 20 minutes to the Bel-Loc, when I could drive five minutes to Mt. Washington or Hampden or walk five minutes to the new Village Cafe to get breakfast.

RoCK--scrapple--GACK!

I have never been to the Bel-Loc, but I sure ate my share of Scrapple back in the day before I learned about nutrition. YUM!!!

I really don't think scrapple is all that bad. You eat sausage, don't you? Scrapple is just pork scraps extended with corn meal mush. Think of it as Amish pate.

Mmmmm, scrapple!

mmmcorn,

Sorry, I have limited sympathy on the cheeseburger thing. You shouldn't have ordered anything but breakfast at a diner. And even then, the only meat I'll ever get is bacon-burnt to a crisp. All else scares me. (BTW I noticed on Popeye's sign the other day, they now have country fried steak. Steak and fast food are two words that should never be used in the same sentence.)

As far as scrapple....the closest I ever got was reading the ingedients on the package. And I didn't even finish that.

I have a very hard time paying somebody $10 for 2 eggs and 3 pancakes, a cold slice of toast and burnt coffee. I can make breakfast for an entire month for $10 and still not burn my coffee!

mmmcorn - it's much more food than that for $10 - you get home fries (or hash browns, forgot which one) and some type of breakfast meat, 2 slices of toast (not cold) PLUS your burnt coffee (LOL) - Honestly, I know I was always a bit buzzed at the Bel Loc but I don't remember the coffee being that bad!

When you just got done spending 5 bucks and upward per drink and a buck a game to shoot pool, all that good diner food is a bargain!

Scrapple: the part of the pig that wasn't good enough to go in a hot dog.

There's a lot of hate out there for scrapple. And almost as much for raw oysters. Be nice, please.