Not only did they have to make special arrangements just to deal with us (truthfully, our group could have fit around the counter just fine) but when our party ended up having a couple more than expected, we started receiving heated glares.
Mary gave me a sharp poke in the shoulder for having more than our reservation. I understand that more people means more work, but we were only two over, and I thought the extra business would be welcomed. We were also given strict instructions on how we should fill the table. We were directed to fill it from one end and to not take the small table beside us, quite arbitrarily. Question: if they opened the dining room special for us, why were they concerned about us taking up another table? That kind of curmudgeonly resistance to changes in routine made me wonder what the appeal of Kelekis was.
Part of the appeal is that Kelekis has the best celebrity portraits on the wall we’ve seen yet. Susan Thompson, Milton Burrows, Randy Bachman, Pierre Trudeau, Nia Vardalos, Leo Mol, Brian Glow, Mimi Kuzyk and Adrienne Clarkson are just some of the youthful, smiling faces adorning the wall. This seems to be an area-specific decorating scheme. Restaurant neighbors Luda’s Deli and Connie’s Corner Café all sport similar pictures, but none as entertaining as Kelekis’.
Unfortunately, the food wasn’t as good as the décor. The breakfast was completely average, nothing exciting about it at all. Standard bacon, tasteless (but real) potatoes, standard eggs and plain rye toast. I’m sure I should try their lunch items, but for breakfast I would much rather walk down to Luda’s.
Biking advice: if you bicycle to Kelekis from downtown like we did, beware the stench of the Higgins underpass. Seriously, it was a combination of stale piss, dead pigeons and stale dead pigeon piss. Powerful enough to make you swerve.
April 16 2009
C. Kelekis Restaurant
1100 Main St.
after tax and coffee
served until 11am
C. Kelekis, or Kelekis C. (depending on where you read the name) is another of those Winnipeg staples we’re always told about. They’ve been around since 1931, and anything open that long has got to get some props. The downside to being around that long is that a restaurant, much like a person, can get stuck in their ways.
They’re not really a breakfast place. Mary Kelekis, the current owner, told us that they do breakfast only because the cooks are there anyways, prepping for lunch. When I made the reservation a few days before, she told me she would have to open up the dining room and have another server on just for us.
The royal treatment! Though she said it was no problem to do so, our table was made acutely aware of what an unwelcome disruption to their routine we were.
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