Breakfast

The second location for the city’s premiere java slingers and a bakery start-up that first earned loyalists at local farmers markets share a space in the back of Grant Park’s Jane building across from Oakland Cemetery.

Hello, 1950s time warp. The sunny yellow walls, the fluorescent lights, the snug booths, the waitresses who call you “honey”: This is the place to take visitors longing to find some vestige of small-town Southern charm in Atlanta.

The location between Marietta and Kennesaw supports the highest concentration of biscuit pit stops in the metro area. The best of the bunch resides in a nondescript redbrick building with a dim, equally unassuming interior. Oh, but those biscuits.

Look for omelets and pain perdu (a hybrid take on French toast dolled up with strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream) among open-faced sandwiches and savory crepes.

The General Muir opened for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in late January, and it’s already (deservedly) crowded in the morning.

The restaurant prides itself on using local vegetables (some from its own garden), but you’ll find more evidence of such efforts on the lunch menu; breakfast is mostly a straightforward montage of egg dishes, pancakes, and biscuit sandwiches.

Ria Pell’s breakfast diner has been a Grant Park draw since 2000, a bastion of tattooed waitresses and diverse crowds that mill in the small front parking lot while waiting for a table. Beyond the sense of community, though, the appeal can sometimes waver.

This newcomer launched outposts in Marietta and Acworth last year, bringing fresh energy to breakfast in the northern burbs. Southwestern influences rev many of the egg dishes,

Ah, the bumpy flight of the Flying Biscuit. In 2007 owner Delia Champion partnered with local franchise operator Raving Brands to expand beyond the Candler Park original and its Midtown offshoot. The quality at the franchised branches (there are now nine in Georgia) falters. The flagship, launched in 1993, has experienced its own ups and downs over the years, though recently we returned to find the cooking improved.

Shaun Doty's savvy approach extends to breakfast, when he plies sleepy customers with pork schnitzel and chopped liver on toast straight from the lunch and dinner menus.