PORTAGE | Want some humor with your breakfast or lunch?
Maybe try a Tonya Harding club sandwich or a Howard Dean bananas foster - billed as being so good it will make you scream - or breakfast scrambles that honor some of the worst trades in sports history.
They'll be on the menu of the new Egg on Your Face/Deli in Your Belly breakfast restaurant and delicatessen when it opens Dec. 8 at AmeriPlex at the Port business park on Ind. 249.
While the humor -- at the expense of others' faux pas -- sets the mood, it's the food, said local restaurateur Larry Briski, that will set his newest eatery apart from others.
"We're going to use the top of the line ingredients and have a top of the line delicatessen," Briski said, adding the centerpiece will be the five or six types of bread baked on site each day, sliced one-inch thick for sandwiches and for toast with everything on the breakfast menu.
"We are going to be using the delicatessen the way it is suppose to be," he said.
The concept for the new restaurant started some months ago, said Tim Healy, senior vice president of Holladay Properties, developer of AmeriPlex.
They knew there was a need in the area for a good breakfast place and began looking at franchises. Nothing stuck out as special, he said.
Then, through some brainstorming and a lot of laughs, they came up with the name and the concept for the new eatery, which will employ 30 people, most part-time.
Egg on Your Face will serve full breakfasts from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. with an 80-seat eat-in dining room. Adjacent will be Deli in Your Belly which will serve take out sandwiches, soups and salads from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. It also holds a three-way liquor license.
The idea, Healy said , is someone can stop in for breakfast and take their lunch to go or swing by after work and pick up a meal.
The group also enlisted a class at Ivy Tech Community College to help design the restaurant as part of a class project.
"In this stressful time with the economy, you need something light and fun," Briski said, who owns a dozen other restaurants, including the neighboring Quaker Steak & Lube. He added he has no doubts about opening the new venture in light of the economy's decline.
"The economy is tough. If everyone had that thought (to not move forward until the economy improves), the economy will continue to spiral downward. We're going to do our little small part," Briski said.
