Quirky Belmont Street Breakfast Spot Cricket Cafe Will Re-Open Next Month

Portland brunchers rejoice: The Cricket Cafe will re-open.

For thirteen years on Belmont Street, the quaint little Cricket Cafe served up bloody marys, a world of pancakes and griddle-fare, plus their trademark lumberjack eggs benedict with pepper jack and sausage gravy. This June, much to the dismay of brunch-lovers, they closed without warning—so suddenly and quietly that a neighbor actually posted a helpful sign on the door apologizing to each "confused patron" that the Cricket Cafe was "seemingly closed for the foreseeable future."

The neighbor (and/or City State Diner owner) recommended that brunch lovers go to City State Diner instead.

Well, Cricket Cafe is coming back. Katie Prevost and Gordon Feighner, owners of equally beloved breakfast spot Jam on Hawthorne, will revive Cricket Cafe almost exactly as it was. And they'll be opening it again by the end of November.

"We closed on the deal October 1," says Feighner. "We're not going to rebrand it. We're keeping it as the Cricket, trying to keep it pretty much as it was."

The same person who brought the art on the walls into the Cricket before will continue to do so now, Feighner says, and they're keeping the menu pretty much as it was. Cricket Cafe will be open 8 am-3 pm daily.

Feighner says he and his wife have a particular interest in keeping Cricket alive, and exactly as it was.

"I was in there pretty much every day for years," he says.