The Street Cafe Breakfast: A well sought after and thoroughly enjoyed activity in Cape Town. From as early as 7am, hungry city folk flock into an endless range of hot spots to claim their bacon.

Some are clearly on their way to work and seem to enjoy the occasional early rise to get a bit of the social city before taking on its corporate counterpart. Some already have their hip on and could presumably be out this early just to cash in on this trendy social hour. Others again, just came from their workout, are still sporting those trademark-tight bicycle shorts and couldn’t care less about the odors they send off to the next table.

Kloof Street in particular sports a rather popular breakfast strip. I walk down this road every morning and I used to think that my budget wouldn’t allow me to join the breakfast club, no matter how badly I’d like to join the cool kids.

Luckily, I was mistaken. Breakfast is such a popular pre-work activity in these parts because so many of the restaurants have ridiculous specials going on. Some of them might be at seemingly ridiculous times, but we do what we must, don’t we?

My top five breakfasts in Kloof Street:

Arnold’s

You’ll have to get your timing right on this one, but it’s well worth the effort. During the precise time slot of 06:45-07:00 you can tuck into bacon, eggs, toast, tomato and two tiny ostrich sausages for only R13. I’ve done it countless times. It turns out to be the perfect way to see those people you never have time to see, since few people have plans for those 15 minutes in the morning, and everyone has to eat.

Cafe Sofia

Right next door, you’ll get a bit more food and a lot more time to order it in as it’s available until noon. Pay R20 for bacon, eggs, tomato, fries, and toast. This is ideal for Saturdays and Sundays, when that half portion of fries ads just enough grease to nurture the hangover.

Knead

This is one of the newer editions to Kloof Street, the name is well-known and highly reputed, so head on over for quite the variety of early morning nibbles. For R15 you can get either scrambled eggs on toast, the classic muesli-yoghurt-fruit-combination, beans on toast or brioche french toast – something to suit most nationalities really. Catch this between 07:00 and 08:00 and look out over the bustling street, noting how it goes from quiet to frantic in one hour.

Beleza

Not quite situated in Kloof itself, but a worthy edition when it comes to balancing the time of the special, the amount of food on the plate and the price, Beleza has one rather attractive menu item called the Barato. Pay R14 for bacon, eggs, toast and tomato and enjoy this at any time they serve breakfast. An added bonus is that you can stare out over Buitengracht and watch the morning traffic without having to be a part of it.

Cocoa Oola

This is ideal for moms to catch a breather after dropping the children off at the high school,  as it’s directly opposite. Munch on two slices of whole wheat toast, topped with hummus, scrambled eggs and basil for R25. Alternately, get a giant croissant with a variety of toppings (like the good old bacon and egg) for the same price. Cocoa Oola’s special bonus is the lovely view of the mountain from the window seats.

I have personally enjoyed all of these breakfasts and can vouch that this is the only way the budget conscious among us can make a habit of joining the cool kids on the street at breakfast time.