Tacoma transplant Tina Kalinowski just couldn’t sit by and watch as her favorite neighborhood cafe went belly up.

So in late October, she rallied her husband, Caesar, and some friends – Jeff and Jayne Vanderstelt – and together they bought Shakabrah Java, a pioneer business that helped launch the revival of Tacoma’s Sixth Avenue business district in the early 1990s.

Kalinowski, who owned a banquet hall back in Illinois, moved to the Sixth Avenue neighborhood in 2004 and promptly fell in love with Shakabrah’s funky hippie-dippy atmosphere, blueberry pancakes and “magical” potatoes.

“We bought it because we didn’t want to see it close,” Kalinowski says. “We heard it was for sale and we were like, ‘My goodness. We gotta jump on that.’ ”

The new management asked previous owner Angel Stamborsky if she could stick around for a month or so, until they got the hang of things. But it turned into a great working relationship, and she’s still in the kitchen as an employee – which is where she started out 13 years ago.

Kalinowski has kept the menu largely the same, with breakfast served all day, along with lunch.

In the new year, she hopes to extend Shakabrah’s hours into the evening, and add live music and open mike nights into the mix. She’s applied for a beer and wine license, and is also working on a new menu item, to be titled “Sixth Avenue Breakfast.”

Shakabrah Java
2618 Sixth Ave., Tacoma
253-572-2787
Hours: 7 AM-4 PM Mon.-Sat. and 8 AM-4 PM Sun.

Geoff from Tacoma wrote us to ask what restaurant has the best breakfast burrito in the area. Now be warned -- Geoff and I both worked in New Mexico for a while, so we've got high expectations of the early-morning hangover cure.

Hi.

Breakfast seems like a promising platform on which to introduce myself. My name is Kelly, and I'm a copy editor at The News Tribune. I also write for our blog GritCity. But I'll be pitching in here on the Diner, too.

Maybe it's my voyeur side, but I'm one of those people who watches what comes out of the kitchen and what table it's headed to.

I post food pictures on MySpace.

I want to know what you're eating, and how it was.

This site gets my obsession. Photographer Jon Huck takes portraits of people and what they ate for breakfast.

The images have an intimate quietness I dig, capturing that moment of stillness in the morning when there's a breeze through the window and fresh strawberry jam, that sweet balm.

It's almost enough to make me an optimist.

Anyone been out in the berry fields yet this year? I fear I missed strawberry season, but with this chilly, wet, late summer, maybe there's a flat of stragglers left over that'd translate to some jam or a simple no-cook pie. I remember one summer back home in Illinois where we macerated tiny homegrown berries with a little sugar, then piled them in a baked pie crust and let the whole thing ooze and chill till it reached ambrosial sweetness.

How 'bout it, any U-pick reports out there?

Johnny's Dock is reopening for weekend breakfast this week. Since this week is officially a three-day weekend, Johnny's will start breakfast on Friday, coinciding with this week's Tall Ships festival.

Johnny's owner Dave Bingham said breakfast will include smoked salmon Benedict and Johnny's "A Fine Mess" egg scramble.

Seating will be the lounge only. Bingham said NASCAR and NFL will be on the TVs.

Johnny's Dock: 1900 E D St., Tacoma; 256-627-3186

I'm eating my way around Lakewood this week, helping my GO section colleagues research a cover story that'll help returning Strykers figure out what's new in town since they deployed to Iraq 15 months ago.

Year-old Home Town restaurant on Pacific Highway, south of Bridgeport, is one such place. I checked it out today, but I'll give Ed's Diner regular agtoth the first word of this First Bite, from the comments on this breakfast post:

A new owner has opened at what used to be Mory's Restaurant ... the portions are generous, the gravy is flavorful, the chicken fried steak fork tender and the eggs done exactly right. I've been back a couple of times and will definately return. PS: Service is good as well. .

I ordered Home Town's Denver omelet. I give it a mile-high ovation. The eggs were fluffy, browned here and there and, best of all, tasted like egg, not griddle grease. Inside the omelet, diced ham, sliced onions and chopped green peppers were all well-cooked and flavorful. The huge serving of hash browns were thinly sliced and nicely browned. They tasted like spuds, not grease.

Bacon arrived glistening in bubbling grease. And that's a good thing. It let me know that my four strips were cooked to order.

The breakfast menu is basic: eggs and meat, pancakes, omelets and such, served all day. Burgers and diner sandwiches round out the menu. Most items are priced in the $6-$10 range.

I like Home Town's clean and comfortable decor. There are a dozen padded booths and eight chairs at the counter. Mirrors on the wall and ventian blinds on the windows complete Home Town's old-school vibe. The waitress knew customers' names.

I also enjoyed the house music, particularly when the waitress sang along to "La Bamba" with a Korean accent. For the record, that was me singing "tra-la-la, twiddly-dee-dee" along with Patti Page's "Mockin' Bird Hill" as it played on Home Town's sound system.

I will be back.

Home Town: 12115 Pacific Highway S, Lakewood; 253-588-9514. Hours: 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays.

Ed's Note: This is a Second Bite. I'll write them about restaurants I've previously reviewed, when changes in menus, chefs or owners occur.

Babblin' Babs Bistro began serving weekend breakfast June 1. I dropped in on Sunday. It was one of the best, and most leisurely, breakfasts I've had in recent memory.

Who knew sodium-free sausage could be so delicious? Babblin' Babs chef/owner William Mueller makes his own sausages. While I reached for the salt before taking a second bite of the $3.50 side order, the two plump pork patties woke me up: made from ground loin, the sausage was ultra-lean and clean-flavored.

The rest of my breakfast ­- waffles topped with lox and dilled crème fraiche, $10.95 -- was equally admirable.

Mueller likes grape seeds. His cooks with grapeseed oil. His waffles are made with flour milled from the seeds of Riesling grapes. Although Mueller uses a bit of all-purpose flour to take the rough edge off the Riesling flour, the nutty, hearty flavor of the Riesling flour shines, giving the waffle a rusty brown hue and density that stops short of rubbery, sort of like that addictive Ethiopian injera bread.

Other breakfasts include a Benedict with French ham, quiche, crab cakes, baked apple-peach "soup" with oatmeal, breakfast sandwiches and house-made chorizo with eggs. Prices are $6.95-$12.95. My breakfast came with some of the ripest strawberries I've seen this season.

Caveat diner: Babs' eggs are steam "scrambled" over a water bath in a hotel pan. No fried, no poached, no over-easy. Mueller said he chose to steam the eggs, partly because his tiny kitchen lacks a hood, and also because he said he wants "the true smell of the food to come through," and wants to avoid heavy doses of butter and grease that often makes breakfast-lovers seek post-meal naps.

The tiny, comfortable cafe has just only six tables inside. A rush could swamp the kitchen, but a tasty bellini (Italian sparkling wine and white peach nectar) and live music (a classical guitarist entertained the day I dined at Babs) made my hour-long breakfast better.

Babblin' Babs Bistro: 2724 N. Proctor St., Tacoma; 253-761-9099. Breakfast 9 a.m.- 2 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays.

Breakfast, at Alfred's Cafe.

Over in The You Plate Special, Ed's Diner regular cking9900 asks:

Ed, Will you do a write up or start a blog on places around town for Breakfast and/or brunch? Will be entertaining out-of-town company soon.

I wrote an A-to-Z round-up of breakfast favorites in January. That one took about a month's worth of morning-meal research, so I'm not sure I'll make cking9900's out-of-town-guest deadline.

I can't vouch for everything on the menu, but in a first bite of Carr's Restaurant in Lakewood last month, I was impressed with the beautifully browned hash browns, along with the chunky sausage gravy that smothered golden chicken-fried steak. The few times I've had it, Paddy Coyne's toast with orange butter brightened my mornings.

Got any recommendations for cking9900? I'll gladly check them out and let you know what I think.