So, about Courtney's

A friend introduced me to Courtneys 3-some years ago. It was like stumbling upon breakfast nirvana. So many combinations of eggs, cheese and meat! Such big portions! Such awe-inspiring English muffins, dripping with butter!

I loved the faux-intimacy of the dining rooms -- both in Cary and in Raleigh. They looked like film sets for a breakfast diner, except with exceedingly low ceilings. The servers were hello-darlin' Southern. And the carafes of water were a touch of lemon-flavored genius: All that cheese and salty breakfast meat demanded a perpetual beverage source, and the last thing you wanted to do was be flagging down a server with a mouthful of cheesy eggs, right?

I should have known the wonderment would wear off.

The menu hasn't changed in the past few years. I can still sit down and order the Denver or the California and get the skillet full of cholesteroly goodness. But things have slid. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, this isn't the same Courtney's.

First off, the service: A few weeks ago my plus-1 and me walked into the Raleigh restaurant. We were greeted with monosyllabic grunts by a girl barely old enough to hold a driver's license, then led to a table next to a buoyant toddler. Stee-rike 1. Service with a grunt, not so appealing. Toddler, even less so, though a necessary evil of dining out.

So I read my obligatory USA Today (available outside the front door for 50 cents! just like at the Marriott!) and waited far too long for my skillet. When the skillet arrived, it was a pale imitation of my first skillet all those many Saturdays ago. The potatoes, the sauteed miracle of butter and paprika, were undercooked. The English muffin, barely toasted if at all. The combination of eggs, cheese and vegetables had no romance, no glamour. I felt let down. Like I was on a second date that fizzled.

More monosyllables from underage employees, and we were out.

*sigh* It's such a shame. The concept is so good, so simple, so pure! Hot, quick breakfast for the masses, a solid cross-section of churchgoers, harried families and retirees. But after my last experience, my confidence is more likely to rest with Big Ed's (closed on Sundays, sadly) or NoFo (slightly uppity and overpriced).

More from the breakfast trenches another time. The blueberry muffins on my stove are calling my name.