don't understand the popularity. i am sorry, i do not understand why this place was so packed this morning. the was a 20 minute wait for a table, although admittedly they did allow you to have coffee while you were waiting. when i asked about a gluten-free menu, i was told that they did not believe in them because they were dangerous and the server would explain what was safe and what wasn't. i guess we could live with that and so we waited. we were seated about 20 minutes or so later, as promised and looked at the expansive menu. my daughter looked for things that might be gluten-free and there was not much in the way of a meal. you could do omelettes and breakfast dishes or grilled chicken, but most things seemed to have some kind of bread with it and the only way she managed to get a gluten-free breakfast was to ask for a corn tortilla instead of toast. so, although that experience was not perfect, we did find something for her to eat.
my experience, on the other hand was much less satisfactory. i ordered the corned-beef has with toast and fried eggs instead of the standard scrambled. give the server credit here, she did offer me non-standard eggs and i was happy to take them. i ordered them sunny-side up. they were the best part of the breakfast. the corned-beef hash was a disaster. i consisted of a large portion of potato chunks (well prepared to be true) smothered in what seemed to be a mixture of white and yellow wax (i assume it was supposed to be cheese, whatever it was, it was totally tasteless). now i know what you are thinking, "didn't he say corned-beef hash?"', you are correct, i did. the corned beef consisted of small pieces that appeared to have been cut with a microtome (a device used to prepare tissue samples for examination in the optical microscope, which cuts so thinly that the tissue is s transparent). the largest piece of meat i found was about 2mm square. as my wife pointed out, since i quite often order corned-beef hash, it is usually corned-beef colored, this hash was potato and "cheese" colored. it was also quite flavorless. i ate it with a considerable amount of hot sauce that at least gave it some tang. not a recommended dish.
my wife, who is not keen on breakfast food in general, ordered a piece of quiche and a salad. the salad was pretty ordinairy, but there was nothing wrong with it. the quiche came with a monster bread roll, which, although quite fresh, added significantly to the overall carbohydrate content of the meal. it was a pretty tasteless roll too. the quiche (portobello, artichoke and swiss) was pretty flavorless and it had the tired look and a skin on the top that suggested it was old and had been microwaved. not at all a good dish.
so, all in all we don't know what this place has to rave about. the coffee was good, freshly made and i got skimmed milk for mine without any effort. the server (can't remember her name but she was the "service lead") was helpful and cheery and efficient, somewhat different to the hostess with her dire comments about gluten-free menus.
shame that i cannot report a better experience, as we will be visiting durham a number of timse over the next few years and it would be good to have a nice breakfast place to visit.