This Minnesota Breakfast Restaurant Is Just 10 Feet Wide

Here is an incomplete list of things that are about as long or tall as Al's Breakfast is wide: a kayak, a basketball hoop, an alligator, a Christmas tree, and fifteen bricks laid end to end. Maybe you're not used to seeing this kind of comparison for a restaurant, but it's warranted in this case: the Minneapolis institution is, after all, just ten feet wide. Squeezed into an alleyway between two other businesses, Al's looks like it could be some whimsical restaurant run by street cats in a Studio Ghibli movie or something. But not only is Al's real, it's spectacular — offering a rich assortment of quality breakfast food, it's rightly cherished by those in the neighborhood and beyond. That James Beard award behind the counter isn't there for no reason, after all. (Though James Beard himself may have hated the awards that would eventually bear his name.)

The story of Al's Breakfast starts in the latter half of the 1940s, when Al Bergstrom, who had been working as a short order cook at a restaurant called the Dutch Treat, wanted to strike out on his own. As it happened, there was a building just across the street that housed a 14-stool lunch counter. Al bought it, undeterred by the fact that it was, well, ten feet wide. (It's the narrowest restaurant in Minneapolis, although, at 79 feet long, it's not as tiny as you might assume.) Al's restaurant opened in 1950, and while it initially served breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Bergstrom eventually decided to stick solely to breakfast — a fittingly narrow focus for a narrow restaurant.

Although Al Bergstrom retired in 1973 and died 40 years later, he lends more than just his name to the restaurant today. Those who succeeded him swore to run the restaurant just the way Al did, and there's still a charming out-of-time quality to Al's Breakfast. The menu is stocked with hearty breakfast favorites, including an assortment of scrambles (try the Leonard with cheddar, tomato, and sausage, or the Grina with salami and onions), omelets (like the East Bank with hot pepper cheese, black olives, and tomatoes), and pancakes and waffles with various toppings. The food was noteworthy enough to warrant a visit from notable egg hater Guy Fieri on the very first season of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," as well as win the aforementioned James Beard Award for America's Classics. Clearly, there's plenty that separates this great diner from the merely good ones.

There are, of course, some other distinguishing characteristics to this small restaurant. Because there are just fourteen stools, there is usually a pretty significant line, and once you're in there you may be asked to move down a seat or two to make room for someone else. But if you're worrying about payment, you have options. There is a way to pre-pay for your meals if you're a frequent customer, which Al initially started as a way to accommodate railroad workers who only got paid once a month. Over time, it became quite useful for any customer who wanted to guarantee a square meal each day while they still had the money. It's that kind of thoughtfulness that proves Al's heart was big, even though his restaurant was (and remains) rather small.