Zachary's Restaurant
The sourdough pancakes come off a starter the kitchen says is purported to date to the Alaskan Gold Rush, and they will tell you the story if you ask. Breakfast and lunch on Pacific Avenue since 1985, closed Mondays, kitchen down at 2:30.
Why go
Everything-homemade is a claim most rooms make and few can itemize. This one can. There are three house breads, oatmeal-molasses, sour white and dark rye, and you pick which one your sandwich comes on. The burgers sit on house-made sourdough buns. The chilis are from scratch and so are the home fries. The house dish is Mike's Mess, and the pancakes carry the starter. On the starter's age the restaurant hedges its own claim, and the hedge is the honest part: our sour starter is purported to date back to the Alaskan Gold Rush.
That is one flour-and-water culture at the top of the main street of a college town, running since 1985.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the sourdough pancakes, and Mike's Mess if you want the plate the regulars order. Ask which bread before you order a sandwich.1
- Avoid: Monday, and anything after 2:30pm. The kitchen runs breakfast and lunch and then stops.1
What locals & experts say
- Zachary's, on its own kitchen: the menu is built on an
everything homemade
philosophy that starts with the three breads and the house home fries.1 - The record is thin here. No bylined review of this room was read this pass, and the page says so rather than filling the gap.
Good to know
- Timing: Tuesday to Sunday, 7am to 2:30pm, closed Monday. Breakfast and lunch both run all day.
- Booking: walk-in. The whole menu goes out for takeout too.
- Getting there: the 800 block of Pacific Avenue, the walkable stretch of downtown.
Verdict
could-visit — Forty-one years of breakfast on Pacific Avenue, with a sour starter the kitchen says is purported to go back to the Alaskan Gold Rush and will tell you the story of if you ask. Three house breads and a house-made sourdough burger bun are the part of everything-homemade you can actually check. It sits at could-visit rather than higher because the only source is the restaurant itself, and nobody outside the room has written about the cooking in anything we could read.