After three weeks, 64 competing restaurants and 60 polls, the Final Four in the Breakfast Bowl has been chosen.
Wait, make that the Final Five — we'll explain in a minute.
When time was up and the polls were closed on Monday, Three Coins Diner had taken the win for North Hillsborough/Ybor, sweeping Tre Amici by over 700 votes. Pinky's claimed the title for the South Hillsborough region, with over 450 more votes than Moxie's Cafe. After a weekend-long, back-and-forth contention, Banyan Coffee & Tea barely took the lead in the end over Cafe Alma for the South Pinellas/ Downtown St. Pete/Beaches region title. And Bowled won the North Pinellas/NE St. Pete region with just a few hundred more votes than Lenny's.
But that wasn't the end. As anyone knows who took even a cursory look at the comments section on various Breakfast Bowl races, emotions ran high. Nowhere was that more true than in the Bowled/Lenny's race, in which charges and counter-charges were traded with abandon.
CL has to take some blame for the problem; the simple polling system we used (unlike, say, the system we use for Best of the Bay) did not allow for a 'captcha' function that would have increased users' faith in voting integrity. On the other hand, the controversy did show just how passionate these restaurants' fans can be about their favorite breakfast spots, and that's something Lenny's and Bowled can be proud of.
And here's something else they can be proud of. Despite the hard-fought, frequently mean-spirited battle waged by commenters, the restaurants' proprietors met online and in person and made statements of mutual support that reflected the original spirit of this contest. And Michael Cecere, whose Bowled won the vote count, asked that he not be included in the Final Four judging by CL unless Lenny's were also considered. We've agreed to do just that.
So there you have it: the Final Five in the Breakfast Bowl are (in alphabetical order) Banyan Coffee & Tea, Bowled, Lenny's, Pinky's and Three Coins Diner. CL food critic Brian Ries and his breakfast posse will be on a tasting tour of all five this week, with the winner to be revealed in CL's issue of April 7. May the best breakfast (or brunch) win!
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2011.