Staunton
Blackbird Bakery Cafe

Blackbird Bakery Cafe

123 E Main St, Staunton, USA, United States

Cafe • Soup • Coffee • Breakfast


"The downside is traveling is pretty soon all your favorite restaurants will be hundreds of miles from where you live. I've never met a satisfying cheesesteak outside of eastern Pennsylvania, my favorite burger joint is in Mississippi, and now my favorite French style cafe is in Illinois.I arrived after biking about 20 miles from Edwardsville, and got the TCB sandwich turkey, cheddar, and bacon with lettuce, onion, tomato, and herbed mayo, and upgrade the side from fries to a salad for $2. You get to choose which of three salads you want; I went with the Solstice lettuce, goat cheese, pecans, seasonal fruit (strawberries today and poppyseed dressing. The vegetables, for that matter all the ingredients, are top quality, and both the sandwich and (side! salad are large serving sizes. Despite my taste buds' protestations, I seriously considered taking half of the sandwich to go, which never happens after that long of a ride, but my bike bag needed space for a pastry to go.Although some offerings (including the apple fritter had sold out by 1 PM, there were still around ten options. I went with the pain au chocolat, which was flaky in just the right way like they are in France. It can be hard to find that in the U.S. I live in a metro area of about two million, and while there's probably a place that does French pastries right, the only one I knew of isn't around anymore.The only real opportunity for improvement would be having a French cafe atmosphere, with wrought iron furniture out front on a patio and so forth, but that isn't realistic in the current building. If it we're, I'd probably have to drop everything and move to Staunton.As is, I'll hope that the steady lunchtime business continues or increases, and visit again the next time I'm in southern Illinois. If you live nearby and haven't visited yet, make sure you do soon!"