Any experience at Easton Town Center can be turned into an all-day affair, with enough dining, shopping, and entertainment options available to keep you occupied for hours. With the excitement of the holidays ramping up, there are even more reasons to visit, including the thousands and thousands of lights strung throughout and decorations galore to see.
Favorite spots like the Easton Express (our boys know it very well) are lit up as well, and there are huge Christmas trees featured in the squares.
Given the breadth of dining options at Easton, it should come as no surprise that breakfast and brunch are covered, too, so if you’re spending a day there (during the holidays or not), you’ll find everything from cafes to juice bars to burger restaurants, Irish pubs, and upscale spots serving an early meal.
If you catch Northstar Cafe right away in the morning, for instance, one of the first sights you’ll see is a large tray of colorful mugs, keeping your coffee vessel warm even before you fill it.
Northstar’s Easton location – their third overall – features glass walls in the entryway, so your first views are the kitchen at work.
On a special brunch excursion with Toni, the resident Easton FoodE, we started our meal at Northstar with the requisite baked goods – a praline scone and a blueberry buckle – plus coffee, and hot chocolate.
The Easton Northstar is gorgeous, with a circular balcony overlooking the main dining room.
It’s not often I see a blueberry buckle, essentially a blueberry cake, on breakfast menus. My grandmother used to make blueberry buckle for dessert, and the flavor of Northstar’s brought me right back.
It’s hard to pass up hot chocolate on a cold day, especially when there’s a little kick to it.
The prosciutto and eggs always gets me. Three poached eggs and prosciutto layered on rosemary focaccia. Such a light and salty taste.
It’s similar in form to an eggs benedict, although there’s enough flavor in the prosciutto and the focaccia that you don’t need hollandaise.
Their colorful smoked turkey and sweet potato hash is an old favorite as well. Be sure to break those egg yolks and stir them into the mix.
If you’re up for a lighter breakfast at Easton, you can stroll over to the new Zest Juice Co. in Fenlon Square.
Their juices are cold pressed, meaning (obviously) there’s no heat in the process, which better preserves the nutritional value of the ingredients. The menu ranges from fruitier drinks to more savory concoctions to beverages with a little spice. There’s even a selection of “shots,” concentrated portions intended for specific purposes like boosting immunity, fighting illness, offering a kick of energy, and so on.
They feature a variety of coffee and milk products, too, like cold brewed Stauf’s coffee, almond milk, and combinations of them (not to mention seasonal flavored versions like the pumpkin spice).
Their menu includes house-made juices as well as smoothies, bowls, snacks, and a small selection of toasts. We ordered a slice of the fluffernutter toast.
The sweet-but-not-too-sweet fluffernutter uses Laughlin’s Bakery bread with a spread of Honeyrun Farm‘s honey, Krema peanut butter, and bananas.
My favorite of the juices they sell was the sweet potato cider. It offers a nice balance of sweetness and earthiness, with a little touch of spice from cayenne.
If you’re in the mood for a hearty brunch, you can always visit the burger-centric Flip Side. We’ve stopped in before, but it’s always worth mentioning their weekend brunch.
Flip Side features a little Bloody Mary bar at brunch, so you can build your own cocktail to make it spicy or mild or chock full of garnishes to your heart’s content. They also feature a solid beer selection, with plenty of Ohio brews represented.
Their small brunch menu covers items like chicken and waffles, biscuits and gravy, and a few varieties of eggs benedicts.
But you can’t go to brunch at a burger joint without getting a big, messy burger topped with bacon, cheese, crispy onions, and a fried egg!
Any of these options should give you a good start to a day at Easton! Read about more brunch spots in part two!
