Breakfast

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.

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,

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.

This comfortable, meandering space is one reason to visit the community of Kirkwood; it’s easy to grab a seat for a quick early breakfast or a languorous, hours-long brunch.

The business has expanded to outposts in Midtown and Buckhead, but we remain loyal to the bustling original. Grab a signature cinnamon roll if you’re in a hurry, but it’s worth sticking around for a sit-down meal.

The flagship Thumbs Up on the Old Fourth Ward’s Edgewood Avenue—a pioneering business when it opened in 2000 along this now-booming restaurant row—attracts the city’s most egalitarian breakfast flock. Whether black or white, in designer jeans or in sweats, customers huddle amiably at the curving counter and in booths surrounded by exposed brick walls.

Small details impress: Spiced honey butter served with the waffle delivers a wallop of cinnamon and mellow sweetness, and fried green tomatoes stay crisp even while wrapped in a whole-wheat burrito with scrambled eggs.

It may be discreetly tucked into a nondescript strip mall on Peachtree Road, but it is well known to the local elites, who keep the restaurant busy until it stops serving breakfast at 2:30 p.m. Look to the dishes with Greek influences to give your morning a little opa.

A wonderfully eccentric Poncey-Highland stalwart since 1994, Java Jive serves a side of droll irony with its eggs and coffee.