LEMON TREE CAFE
Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★★
District: Ralston
Cozy breakfast diner specializing in savory dishes
Perfect For: Baked Goods; Lunch; Casual Dining; Breakfast/Brunch
Standout Dishes: Bacon, Cheddar, & Ham Pancakes; Jalapeno Popper French Toast
When the opening of Lemon Tree Cafe was announced, it was as if the Avengers had been assembled, Omaha breakfast style.
Meghan McLarney and Jennifer Maguire are sisters and own two of Nebraska’s most beloved breakfast joints: Gravy Train and Lisa’s Radial Cafe. Their late mother was the latter’s namesake, and the sisters have fond memories of their food-centric family crafting fun breakfast and lunch dishes together.
Only these savory breakfast dishes didn’t really fit the menus at either of their restaurants. Some of their ideas involved biscuits, but most wouldn’t make sense at a biscuit and gravy-centered restaurant. And Lisa’s has been an Omaha standby since 1938; there’s only so much you can change on the menu before the regulars revolt.
No, to fully express the emotions and heart that Meghan and Jennifer wanted to put on a plate, they needed a new concept entirely. Thus, Lemon Tree Cafe was born.
Drive down main street in downtown Ralston and you can’t miss it. From the bright red brick exterior to the bright yellow doors and the gorgeous hand-painted sign, Lemon Tree Cafe sticks out.
Another easy way to identify this gem: there may very well be a line out the door, especially on weekends.
There are 2 reasons you shouldn’t let the crowd deter you:
- The food is absolutely worth waiting for.
- The environment is such that you honestly don’t mind waiting.
That second thought might seem ludicrous in today’s microwave society, but Lemon Tree’s homey interior brings to mind a simpler, less chaotic time. It feels like a diner plucked straight out of the 1940s, right down to the old school coffee pots, freshly baked cinnamon rolls in the pastry display, and the pick-up-your-ticket-and-pay-at-the-counter system. It’s a place that invites you to slow down, enjoy conversation with your dining companion, have friendly banter with your waitress, and anxiously await the arrival of your meals.
The menu includes a number of lunch plates, most burgers and sandwiches, including a tuna melt, cheesesteak, and the Grown-Up Grilled Cheese with a sharp cheddar cheese crust on the outside of the sandwich.
But the highlight is the breakfast, particularly its savory takes on AM classics. Diners wanting the classics will find the familiar favorites: pancakes, French toast, and “The Usual” Eggs plate are all present. But Lemon Tree dares you to drive a sweet dish head onto into the savory lane and see what happens.
The Jalapeno Popper French Toast is one such expectation-defying dish. It starts with two enormous slices of fluffy egg bread that are stuffed with jalapeño cream cheese, dipped in custard, battered with corn flakes, and cooked to a perfect golden brown on the griddle. The result carries the familiar sweet, vanilla/cinnamon flavor in the bread, but the filling adds creaminess and a touch of heat.
The dish is then adorned with medium fried eggs and enormous chunks of crispy bacon for more salt and texture. But just when it threatens to lean too savory, a healthy drizzle of hot honey brings the sugar necessary for balance.
This dish perfectly sums up Lemon Tree Cafe; these aren’t some chef-y gastronomical dishes conceived in a lab. They’re just a bunch of breakfast food cooked extremely well and paired in a way you haven’t seen it before.
The same could be said of the Bacon, Ham, & Cheddar Pancakes (pictured in the header photo). Lisa’s is renowned for its Pluto-sized, fluffy pancakes, which are traditionally paired with a said of bacon. But Lemon Tree turns the dish on its head by cooking the bacon, along with chunks of ham and a mouse’s treasure trove worth of cheddar cheese, inside the pancake itself, again finishing it with a liberal amount of hot honey.
The meats add salt and texture to contrast the sweet, airy cake, and the cheddar infuses every bite with a sharp, browned butter flavor. This is the best plate of pancakes I’ve ever had.
Breakfast traditionalists will find plenty to like at this pleasant diner as well, like the Bacon, Ham, & Cheese Hash. A bed of crispy, slightly charred breakfast potatoes are mixed with shredded cheddar, bacon, ham, and sweet roasted red peppers, then topped with two expertly cooked over medium eggs. The slightly runny yolk spills everywhere, adding a rich custard-like element to the dish.
Plus, the plate comes with one of Meghan’s famous cheddar biscuits. Though the biscuit is a bit dry on its own (it was created to be doused in gravy, after all), a dip in the egg yolk adds any missing moisture.
Lemon Tree Cafe is proficient with its sandwiches as well, starting with the BLT. With only a few ingredients, the BLT is among the most humble sandwiches, but when it’s treated with care and built with quality ingredients, it shines like a supernova. That’s the case at Lemon Tree, as a stack of meaty, crispy bacon slices lend their salty, fatty brilliance to fresh lettuce and a cooling aioli.
But what takes this dish to a new level are the tomatoes. Marinated in vinegar in sugar, they burst onto the scene with juiciness and sweetness, tying this simple but delicious sandwich together.
Those same tomatoes also appear in the Dawn Phenomenon, a breakfast sandwich with a few surprises. A perfectly fried egg, crispy bacon, and melty gouda and American cheeses are joined by two elements not typically found in breakfast sandwiches: ham and the tomatoes. But these new elements bring salt and sweetness, respectively, to create something new, creative, and delicious.
The dishes are all very reasonably priced, ranging from $6-13. And if I can guarantee you one thing about Lemon Tree Cafe, it’s that you won’t leave here hungry. These sizeable plates are eclipsed by the pancakes, French toast, and everything else loaded on top of them. This is a nap-inducing restaurant if there ever was one.
It’s trendy these days for restaurants to claim they’re “elevating” or “reimagining” classic breakfast dishes, and I fully support that type of innovation.
But that’s not quite what Lemon Tree is doing. It’s simply taking breakfast dishes, cooked by sisters who’ve learned from the best and have been doing it their whole life, and constructing them in a different way.
Lemon Tree Cafe isn’t Lisa’s Radial Cafe. And it’s not Gravy Train. It’s something wholly unique, something that Jennifer and Meghan should be proud of. I have no doubt Lisa is.