Tarrant breakfast crawl: Black Walnut Cafe in Colleyville

Black Walnut Cafe is one of those places that puts a clock on breakfast: Till 11 a.m. on weekdays, till 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. After that, it’s lunch and dinner — although a few breakfast items are available all day.

As we resume this journey we started last week through “breakfast-centric” chains that have added locations in Tarrant County this year, we realize that Black Walnut sort of wears the “breakfast-centric” label lightly. But you can eat breakfast later here on a weekend than you can eat brunch at many restaurants, and if you want, say, a Philly cheesesteak omelet at 8:15 p.m., you can get one. Breakfast-centric enough for us.

The history: According to its website, Black Walnut Cafe “emerged” in 2002 as a “destination for hungry Houstonians.” (It’s based in the Woodlands, which is a few traffic jams — or one very long one — north of Houston, but it has three Houston locations and four in cities near Houston.)

It has since spread across Texas — DFW locations include Flower Mound, Coppell, Frisco and Allen — and has opened locations in Georgia. The Colleyville location opened in February.

The vibe: On this visit, surprisingly mellow. I’ve been to the Flower Mound location for lunch and the Colleyville one for dinner and both places were packed. But at 10 a.m. Monday, it was pretty sleepy.

Yeah, you can say that’s late for a weekday breakfast, but most of the crawl visits have taken place at what might be considered post-peak time for breakfast, and the crowds have been bigger (in the case of Another Broken Egg Cafe in Southlake, the dining room got more full between 9 and 10 a.m.).

In an earlier post, I described Black Walnut as “Cafe Express grows up.” You enter, grab a menu near the door (or a staffer gives you one), order at the counter, get the pager and get buzzed when your order is ready. There’s a coffee/gelato/alcohol bar between the front door and the order counter, and the bar area is lined with booths.

Three other dining rooms have varied levels of light, and the whole thing feels kind of comfortably loungey. There is also a patio that, unlike the ones at some other places on the crawl, mostly faces a pond instead of a parking lot or a freeway access road.

In one of the front dining rooms, the music played so low that I had a hard time telling what it was, which is often a good thing. When I went to a part of the restaurant where I could hear the music, it was a Jack-FM style mix: Duncan Sheik, the Cars, the B-52’s. Suited my tastes, but wasn’t crammed down the ears of diners whose taste it doesn’t suit.

The food: The breakfast menu breaks down to “Eggs & More,” “Benedicts” (even more eggs and more — more than a half-dozen variations), “Griddle” (pancakes, waffles, French toast — including Napoleon French toast, which probably also qualifies as dessert) and “All-Day Omelets & More (still even more eggs and more, including migas and breakfast tacos, enchiladas and quesadillas).

Having opted for something other than chicken and waffles at last week’s visit to Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles in Southlake, I decided to try Black Walnut’s take. Which was better than I expected it to be at a chain that doesn’t specialize in the dish.

For $9.50, you get a stack of white-meat chicken tenders on top of a waffle that’s thick but smaller in circumference than some waffles, everything lightly dusted with powdered sugar, maple syrup on the side. Having tried chicken and waffles and several DFW restaurants, I can attest that harmony is hard to achieve: Usually the chicken is better than the waffle, sometimes vice versa, seldom are both excellent.

In this case, the waffle was the star: A crispy outside giving way to a tender inside, mildly sweetened even before the syrup was added. The chicken tenders had a similar texture, and were mildly seasoned, but there was something just a little fast-foody about them.

As mentioned, there’s a coffee bar, but I’ve been trying to go basic with the coffee during the crawl. A regular mug ($1.90) is self-serve, and the French roast was probably the best I’ve had at the chain restaurants I’ve been to in the past week.

The verdict: I would order the same meal again, even with my quibbles about the chicken tenders. And there are plenty of reasons to return for breakfast. Such as Napoleon French toast — and a Philly cheesesteak omelet you can order at any time of day.

Black Walnut Cafe, 205 Church St., Colleyville, 682-235-5100, www.blackwalnutcafe.com/colleyville. Breakfast menu served 6:30-11 a.m. Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; some breakfast items available all day.

This story was originally published November 22, 2016 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Tarrant breakfast crawl: Black Walnut Cafe in Colleyville."