Breakfast Items You Can Order At Perkins Ranked Worst To Best

The very first Perkins eatery opened its doors in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1958, and at the time it was a primarily focused on pancakes and waffles. Nowadays, the restaurant chain operates much differently. It has roughly 300 company-owned and franchised locations located in 32 states as well as two Canadian provinces, and the menu looks vastly different from decades ago when the Perkins endeavor began. Guests can now enjoy a slew of breakfast options served all day long, an array of burgers, sandwiches, and entrees, plus an assortment of soups and salad. There's even a bakery that makes a wide variety of pies and other treats.

Now, even though you can show up at a Perkins for any meal of the day, many of the customers show up for the breakfast options. Everyone needs a little perking up in the wee hours of the morning, so why not venture to a place that has the word perk in its name? With such a plethora of breakfast options to choose from, it can be tough to figure out where to direct your attention. So we've compiled a list of the items that'll give you a morning spring in your step and the ones that might just leave you dragging your feet for the rest of the day. These are Perkins breakfast items ranked worst to best.

You might not think of steak as something you include alongside other breakfast foods, but steak and eggs is a classic breakfast dish served all over. The combination of the light eggs and rich steak works well together, and it offers a powerful protein punch to start the day. At Perkins, you can order up the Top Sirloin Steak and Eggs if your inner carnivore is calling out to you. However, this is one call you should let go straight to voicemail.

The dish comes with a 6-ounce grilled top sirloin steak topped with garlic butter, eggs any style, your choice of either hash browns or breakfast potatoes, and then the option of three pancakes, a muffin, or buttered toast. Obviously the steak is the star of the show here, and that's the issue. No matter what temperature your steak is cooked, you literally have to rip it apart with your teeth. The meat is overly chewy and bland, so shelve that carnivorous urge when it comes to this dish.

We have to give thanks to soul food and its culinary tradition for allowing the greatness of fried chicken to creep into breakfast. Waking up craving fried chicken might sound strange, but a hearty dish like the super popular chicken and waffles is sure to kick your day off properly. And while Perkins doesn't specifically offer chicken and waffles, they do have fried chicken in the form of their Southern Fried Chicken Biscuit Breakfast.

The dish comes with two chicken and American cheese biscuit sandwiches slathered in cream gravy, two eggs any style, two strips of bacon, and your choice of potatoes. The biggest problem here, as with the sausage biscuit meal, is the consistency of the biscuits. The chicken is fried nicely and holds a decent amount of moisture, but the bone-dry biscuits and bland gravy override the positive qualities of the chicken. This dish would fare much better if only the chicken was included and it ditched the biscuits and gravy.

Every morning you make a mental decision regarding how you want your day to unfold. So why not decide to start it in the most fabulous way possible? That means starting with a fabulous breakfast to get that brain churning and kick those energy levels into high gear. At Perkins, there's only one breakfast dish that literally screams fabulous from right off the menu — the Fabulous Five.

This menu option comes with, you guessed it, five items. You get one egg prepared however you like, two strips of applewood smoked bacon, and a choice of two buttermilk pancakes or two slices of buttered toast. Obviously if you want the most bang for your buck here you're going to opt for the pancakes over the toast. Not only are they more filling, but pancakes are so much more satisfying flavor-wise. The fact that there's only one egg is kind of a bummer; you're left wanting at least one more for a bit more protein in the meal. Overall, this breakfast is okay, but you might be left yearning for more afterwards.

Slapjacks. Hot cakes. Flapjacks. Pancakes. Whichever term you prefer to use, you're always referring to those warm and fluffy discs of grilled batter that come stacked on top of each other with a dollop of butter along with a (hopefully heavy-handed) drizzle of syrup. Pancakes are a staple breakfast food, so naturally Perkins offers up the Buttermilk Pancake Shortstack. You get three made-from-scratch buttermilk pancakes served with the only two topping those doughy discs ever need — butter and syrup.

This dish doesn't come with any sides, but you can order some if you so desire. The buttermilk pancakes are super light and fluffy, and they have a lovely golden brown color, which tells you the griddle cook knew what they were doing. Pair each pancake with a layer of melted butter that seeps into the dough for a great salty flavor to accompany the sweet richness of the syrup you pour on top. Simple, yet so delicious.

If you celebrate Hanukkah or have ever been to a Hanukkah celebration, there's a good chance you've seen, or even eaten, the golden potato pancakes known as latkes. If you've never heard of potato pancakes, they're exactly what you think. Press grated potatoes into pancake shapes, grill them until golden brown on both sides, and viola! Perkins offers a Potato Pancake Platter, so you don't have to wait for the Jewish holidays to roll around to get your hands on some. 

The pancakes in this platter aren't served with your typical syrup topping. Syrup and potatoes are two things that just shouldn't mingle with each other. However, you do get a dollop of butter and a cup of applesauce. While applesauce may sound like it's not much stranger than syrup, since both ingredients are sweet, it actually works quite well with the flavor and consistency of the thinly grilled potatoes. It's nowhere near as rich or dense as syrup. Plus, applesauce is a traditional condiment to serve with this Jewish-inspired treat. 

For many people, it's impossible to truly conquer the day without kicking off the morning with a meal that gives them the mental and physical energy to tackle whatever tasks lie ahead. Some of us prefer a nutrient-packed smoothie, while others opt for a quick grab-and-go breakfast bar. But when a smoothie or bar won't do your appetite justice, you have to look for something rich and hearty to ensure you stay satiated for quite some time afterward. This is where the Hearty Man's Combo at Perkins comes into play.

This dish is certainly worthy of including the word hearty in its name. It comes with two eggs any style, two sausage links as well as smoked sausage, two strips of applewood smoked bacon, either hash browns or breakfast potatoes, and a choice of three buttermilk pancakes, a muffin, or buttered toast. The amount of meat here can get intense, so keep that in mind. It's a ton of food that's meant to accommodate the hungriest of appetites, so if you're not totally famished, make sure you have a friend to help you tackle this spread.

There's nothing quite like a delicious homemade meal made from grandma. So many of us love to bask in the nostalgia of going to our grandparents' house and sitting down for a delicious meal. There is a special kind of love a grandma can put into food that no one else can replicate. Well, if you find yourself at Perkins daydreaming about eating breakfast in grandma's kitchen, you might want to order up Granny's Country Omelet to relive that nostalgia.

The omelet comes stuffed with diced grilled ham, onions, green peppers, shredded American cheese, cheese sauce, and hash browns. Perkins then takes the comfort into overdrive and also piles all those ingredients on top of the omelet as well, so you get nearly double the amount of each one. The omelet itself is light and airy, and the salt from the grilled ham helps bring out the flavor of the other ingredients. Plus, the cheese sauce gives every bite a fantastic warm and rich texture that would make any granny smile wide.

Balancing flavors and textures is vital when constructing a dish that guests are going to not only enjoy eating while they're there, but order again the next time they visit. But it's not always easy to create a dish that hits all the right notes on your palate. Luckily, Perkins managed to tinker around with their breakfast options enough to put together a morning starter that is super well-balanced. The Tremendous Twelve is a hearty platter of ingredients that are properly mixed and matched for your dining pleasure.

Even though the word tremendous is in this dish's name, the breakfast spread isn't as unmanageable as you might think. You get three eggs your way, four buttermilk pancakes, your choice of four bacon strips or four sausage links, and either crispy hash browns or breakfast potatoes. The real challenge here is the stack of pancakes, which can fill you up quickly. But if you balance out the flavors of everything while you eat, you get a great array of textures and tastes. The bacon is crispy and salty, the eggs are light, and the potatoes in both forms are wonderfully crispy on the outside and soft and warm on the inside. You get a little bit of everything with this substantial meal, which makes it a welcome addition to your belly.

Ordering up the eggs benedict at a restaurant is a great way to start any morning. The combination of eggs, ham, and an English muffin all doused in a rich Hollandaise sauce is difficult to pass up on. And for those who love to get their benny on, Perkins upped the game, offering customers a California Avocado Benedict. It has most of the wonderful flavors of the original breakfast dish plus a few delightful additions.

Like all classic eggs benedict dishes, the ingredients are piled onto an open-faced English muffin. However, with this version, you get two sunny side up eggs, applewood smoked bacon, pepper jack cheese, oven roasted tomatoes, and slices of fresh avocado, all basted in Hollandaise sauce. This thing puts regular eggs benedict to shame. The bacon is super crispy and wonderfully rich, and it pairs perfectly with the creaminess of the avocado. The cheese adds a light kick of heat as well as a creamy texture, and the tomatoes give each bite a sweet flavor. However, nothing here would be complete without the super buttery and slightly tangy Hollandaise. It pairs perfectly with every other flavor and texture for a mesmerizing bite over and over again.

When it comes time to whip up a meal of French toast, there's only one bread you should use – brioche. Sure, any bread works, but there's nothing quite like a thick-cut slice of brioche. Not only is the consistency astoundingly light and fluffy, but there's a hint of sweetness infused in it, making it the perfect ingredient to pair with syrup and butter. This is why ordering the Brioche French Toast Platter at Perkins isn't just a suggestion, it's a necessity.

With this dish, you get two super thick slices of brioche bread that are hand-dipped in Perkins' special batter and then grilled to absolute perfection. Once they hit the plate they're dusted with powdered sugar and then served to whatever lucky guest ordered them. Even without syrup or butter, the bread is so sweet and rich and it almost expands in your mouth for an immense burst of splendid texture and flavor. But once you hit those slices with a splash or syrup and a dollop of butter, you fall into a culinary fog that blurs the line between reality and fiction. Leaving Perkins without taking at least a few bites of this dish should be worthy of punishment. It's just that good.