Counter Cafe

First time here and not impressed. The crabcake was about the size of a silverdollar and the homefries were hard like they had been reheated several times. not super friendly either. I won’t go back.

Small hole in the wall café that’s been aired on food network as well. Definitely try their grilled quail and big awesome pancakes made with real fruits. I had blueberry pancakes. And they are super big. Cook was nice enough to make a small one for me on request.

I had the feature of the day lamb sausage eggs Benedict. Delicious !!! My boyfriend had the crab cake eggs Benedict. He loved also. The eggs are so fresh that the yolk is orange!!!
The $ 5 mimosa are perfect. Next time I come to Austin, I will be stopping here for breakfast.

The name says it all. Literally the tiniest restaurant but I expected it. Came by for a quick breakfast and immediately found a spot at the counter. I noticed all the fresh ingredients that are used to prepare all the food. Watched my giant blueberry pancake being made.
My pancake was full of flavor with a generous amount of blueberries. It was smashed! I also ordered the side order of egg and bacon. Excellent. I can’t wait to come back and try the other items on the menu.

Stumbled onto Counter Café while looking for Eastside Café (without my phone or knowing where it was besides On the Eastside;) and found a great little place for breakfast. I am trying most breakfast places in the city and this is close to Java Café for current tops. I liked this better than Magnolia, South Congress, Omeletry, Pacha and its close to Kirby Lane. The bacon is better than both Kirby or Java. The eggs similar but the toast was soggy — the only drawback. They look to have a great burger to try next. See you then.

Came here for breakfast. I had the crab cake Benedict and it was delicious. Crab cakes were moist and fresh. Biscuits were soft. Potatoes were pretty good. Hollandaise was a little bit too lemony and thin for me. But I am a Benedict aficionado, so others may not have a problem with this. My fiancé had fried eggs and you could see how dark the yolk was; ingredients are definitely quality. Be warned that this is a tiny little hole in the wall (think long narrow boxcar with filthy airplane restroom). But I still gladly give 4 stars for the food. Also I noticed they did not seem to have espresso drinks; only black coffee. Not a big deal, we just went Starbucks. Service was friendly, but expect a small wait (to be expected with eggs Benedict made fresh). I would definitely come back to try the famous burgers!

The food is delicious, the service is wonderful and the staff is friendly. The place is small but has a lot of personality and I like sitting at the counter and watching the cooks work their magic.

This place has my favorite hamburger in Austin.
All of their food is good and made fresh.
The environment is very cramped. The staff is nice.
The best way to describe this place is a very expensive and very good diner.

So I’m kind of sad to say that Counter has fallen a little bit in the past year. I’ve been eating there since 2011 at least every few weeks, so I really have noticed a difference recently.
I always get the same two dishes: the Eggs Benedict, and the biscuits and gravy. At both of their locations for some reason the quality of these cooked dishes has declined. Now whenever I get my Eggs Benedict, the egg whites are running, which shouldn’t be the case. It has been this way every single time. The yolk should run a bit, but the egg white should be mostly solid. This basically means that the eggs are undercooked too much, and I don’t think this is the healthiest thing to be eating. The gravy has also become more liquid-​y too, which doesn’t go too well with the biscuits. On a couple of occasions too, the Hollandaise sauce has been off, as in, the liquids that make up the sauce have separated and smell rancid.
I hope that all of this changes back soon. There have been a slew of new cooks on the grills, and the restaurants have expanded, and I think in the process some quality has been lost despite the owner being around all the time (and I know she takes a lot of pride in her restaurants).
I’ll be back to re-​review if things turn around in these departments, as I’ve loved eating there for years.

Burger lived up to the hype. Get it. The crabcake Benedict would have been good if there was more hollandaise sauce and it were seasoned more as well as not over cooking the poached egg… The crabcake as delish doe. Really enjoyed the small restaurant. Definitely not some place you would take a group of 4+ to though

Came here for Sunday late lunch. The waiters were awesome and friendly and the food was amazing. I had the fruit and granola with locally made yogurt and it was my favorite yogurt I’ve ever had. It was kind of sour and they warned me it was bitter, but it was perfect with fruit and sweet granola. The fruit (seasonal; strawberries and blackberries) was fresh and tasty, and the granola was simple and oat-​y.
My dad and sister said their crab cakes were perfect, and my mom was «not at all disappointed» with her «Joe’s Special» with poached eggs, which the waitress had recommended.

Love everything about this place. Breakfast is always good and there’s something with a twist that’s always fun to try.
Can’t go wrong.

Counter Café is the type of place people think of when they talk about «old Austin» It is a tiny diner with local ingredients and your typical Austin staff. Super friendly. Tattooed. Attentive.
They have become one of my favorite weekend breakfast locations because of the Joe’s Special. Home fries, spinach, sausage, scrambled eggs, and covered with grated Parmesan cheese. Add yellow bird sauce and sliced tomatoes instead of toast and you are good to go.
Feel like really treating yourself? Get the blueberry pancake. They are the size of a plate and 1 can be easily split between 2 people. Every bite has an explosion of blueberries in it since they drop fresh blueberries in directly on the grill. Didn’t think anyone could give Kerbey Lane’s blueberry pancake a run but Counter Café definitely does.
The sandwiches and other lunch offerings look good and while the entire menu is available all day I just stick to breakfast. Maybe one day I will branch out.

Delicious meal and friendly service. Husband and I got seated right away.
I ordered the roasted vegetable sandwich with fries. Husband got the quail and fries — swapped the house salad for a Cesar salad instead.
Both orders were delicious! Looking forward to coming back to try more of their good food.

Was looking for a breakfast spot preACL & Unilocal led us here
Didn’t think it’d be as busy as it was on a Sunday @ 9am, but to my surprise, it was!
was greeted immediately in this tiny establishment and got seated immediately.
We fit perfectly next to this party of 3, so we just joined at their table. No biggie whatsoever.
Had some mimosas. Super fresh juice.
Thumbs up!
Ordered joe’s breakfast. Very good. I loved the sausage in this dish and the additional spinach was nice. My potatoes were kind of salty though.
My dining companions got an assortment of the everything… A pancake, a crab cake, the cheesey jalapeño grits, pork chops and egg, biscuit and gravy. The entire menu, obviously.
I got a bite of mostly everything because hey, it’s what I do. Everything was fantastic!
Soft fluffy pancakes. Yummy grits. Perfectly cooked chops.
The mimosas got refilled, we got checked on the appropriate amount, food was delish and we got a table before it got insane.
It was a great way to start the day.
Can’t wait to come back.

Just loved this place. Wanted to come in because saw that the counter burger was listed as one of the 30 best burgers in the USA. Had the burger and definitely one of the best I’ve ever had. Nothing like a awesome burger on a sweet bun. Just amazing.
The summer porridge was amazing and their pancakes were awesome. My family absolutely love this place.
It is very small, but awesome to eat while seeing how your food is made.
Will be back when in Austin again!!!

After eyeing this place for months I finally had the opportunity to go in last week. I loved the tiny space and the fact that it feels like a real diner.
The food is much fancier than in any ordinary diner. The special was their burger topped with grilled peaches and blue or gorgonzola cheese — my friend had that and loved it.
I went with the eggs benedict and paired it with the sausage patty and spinach. So Good. The eggs were perfectly poached, you got a nice amount of spinach to give you the impression that you were eating something healthy. I believe that the eggs were perched upon biscuits as opposed to English muffins. The Hollandaise sauce was delectable.
The little potatoes that came with my meal were bite sized and crunchy, just an all around great meal. Our waitress was wonderful too. I can’t wait to come back.

We walked in, saw the «please seat yourself» sign, went back outside and took a seat at an empty table. A few minutes later, the hostess came out and without saying hello, the conversation went as follows:
Hostess: «Did someone seat you here?»
We answered «No. Your sign says ‘please seat yourself.?’» (If you’re the hostess and you didn’t seat us, I think the pretty obvious answer is «no».)
Hostess: «Well…no. You have to put your name on a list.
Us: «Ok, we were just following the sign. Where is the list?»
Hostess: «Inside.»
So we get up, I go to give her our name and she said «Well, those people whose table you just took I think are now going to leave so just hold on.»
Wow. So incredibly rude. And no, we didn’t take anyone’s table. There was a «please seat yourself» sign and open tables, so we followed the rules and sat. Also, there was another open table and no other party waiting, so it seems we weren’t the reason they left.
Our waitress was not any better. There were 4 of us all with the same exact priced item, but she refused to split our check and simply had an overall terrible attitude.
It’s unfortunate the service was so terrible because the burgers we had were really good. Because of that (and because it’s the 2^nd time I’ve had terrible service here — first time I had a waitress spill hot coffee on me and act like nothing happened), I couldn’t bring myself to come back or recommend this place to anyone.

Bad. Just bad.
Ordered the counter burger medium rare with sweet potato fries. Burger was very well done, nearly cooked to death (I watched it slowly die on the stove), and mostly bun. Not enough cheese to even taste like cheese. Still a relatively decent burger, but definitely not worth any hype.
But dear god the fries. My fries were just fried to death, scorched until it was SOUR. Absolutely black. I literally ate one and couldn’t.
Also ordered the Benedict: flavorless, eggs were over poached and not round. The worst part is watching them make the Benedict. The same towel that was stuffed in dirty jeans pockets was used to wipe the table, wipe dirty hands, wipe the counter, and wipe the sauce on the plate — touching the sauce and then the plate was promptly served. I nearly threw up when I saw that.
Potatoes were the best part but they were bland.
Look, if I’m gonna pay 37 bucks for a meal, can’t I at least expect it to be clean? Or even salted?
Worst part is, service didn’t even make up for the atrocious food experience. We were constantly badgered to order (sorry for not being able to decide within 2 minutes) and then ignored completely after that.
This is a cute place, but I haven’t been this disappointed in a long while.

I had made lunch plans with my friend here a few weeks back and the line was daunting as heck. We opted to sit at the communal table which made things easier for us since we didn’t have to actually wait. It’s small, it’s quaint, it’s cute, the servers were nice and pretty, the food was awesome and the price point wasn’t bad. There is pretty good parking in the area, if you don’t mind walking, etc.
I ordered the double pancakes with blueberries and a side of bacon as is my ritual (whenever a pancake anything is on the menu, there is no question what I’m getting) and my friend opted for something more savory. The pancake was huge, bigger than my face, with a thickness of about half a physics text book. That being said, the pancake was really good, moist, jam packed with blueberries and syrup (extra syrup always) only made it even better.