When people talk about Wichita breakfast places, The Beacon is one of the first places that will get a mention. They have been around in Wichita for years and located right next door to the Wichita Eagle newspaper building which used to be called The Wichita Beacon and the Wichita Eagle-Beacon.
In 1989, the Eagle-Beacon was renamed the Wichita Eagle but the Beacon restaurant kept the same name and have served many of the same people throughout all these years.
Enough with the history lesson though, the Beacon is located at 909 E Douglas Ave and are open daily from 6 am – 3 pm and on Sundays from 7 am – 3 pm. To my knowledge, they have no official website.
If you ask many people what their favorite breakfast place is in Wichita, they will immediately say The Beacon. I’ve been here a couple times in the past but it’s probably been a good 7-8 years since I’ve been here. With such a long line at Doo-Dah Diner (reviewed here) one morning, a friend and I decided to head here since it was close by.
On a weekend morning, the Beacon was also packed and there was a wait list for people. Unlike Doo-Dah though, the wait was just 5-10 minutes compared to the hour wait we were quoted earlier. The Beacon has your mom and pop shop breakfast appeal to it. You imagine an old diner that your folks and grandparents have been going to for years; this fits that.
For our dining experience at The Beacon, we stuck with breakfast. I have this rule that if you go to a restaurant known for their breakfast, you HAVE to order breakfast. I went ahead and ordered the corned beef hash with hash browns and two eggs. My friend ordered the French toast breakfast with eggs, bacon and hash browns along with a large cinnamon roll. After ordering, I noticed our server didn’t even ask how we wanted our eggs cooked. I usually prefer over easy or over medium so I’m guessing she was assuming we wanted scrambled.
The cinnamon roll came out first and it was large as expected. My friend ate half of it and stopped over concerns of being too full before the rest of the breakfast came out. It was noted that the cinnamon roll was really rich and is like a meal in itself; pretty good though.
The food is not out of this world. It’s your basic breakfast staples just done well; much better than what you can find at your 24 hour joints like IHOP or Denny’s. It’s your classic breakfast items cooked as you would like. They aren’t gimmicky, they are straight forward with their menu as you can see below; everything competitively priced.
The service wasn’t extraordinary but it wasn’t bad either. My server seemed like someone out of a 60’s movie you would expect with a little sass to her but did her job.
Would I go again? Yes, especially if I can avoid hour long waits at Doo-Dah Diner.
Happy Dining,
Eddy
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One of my favorite places ever!