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Every Sunday, as you roll out of bed and head to brunch, Bwog will be doing the same. Except we’ll be writing about our brunching experience in hopes of improving your next one. Bwog’s Sunday Brunch will run every Sunday.
The Place: Community Food & Juice
The Location: Broadway between 112th and 113th
Expect to Spend: ~ $20 per person
Know this: At Community Food & Juice—the newest (well, second-newest) addition to the stretch of Columbia mainstays south of 116th on Broadway—you will wait. On a Saturday or Sunday morning, be prepared to wait for around 45 minutes for a table. And expect to wait another 10 to 15 for a waiter to come to your table. And then another half an hour for your meal to arrive.
Whether all the waiting will be actually worth your while depends largely on what you order and how you feel about paying $3.50 for coffee. (Bwog was not too pleased, though the coffee was delicious and there were free refills.) The restaurant has all the affectations of a West Coast smoothie shop—minimalist interior, the ampersand in the name, the infuriating inclusion of a juice bar that takes up an absurd amount of space yet seems to serve no purpose—but it seems like the unhealthier the menu item, the better it is.
The blueberry pancakes were soft, hot and wonderful, and come with delicious homemade maple butter, “which has the consistency of a not-sticky syrup,” opined Bwog’s brunching companion. Bwog’s mouth watered at the sight of the brioche French toast, which comes with caramelized bananas and roasted pecans. In fact, we observed it to be the most popular item ordered during our (very long) brunch.
Moving towards the slightly healthier fare, the omelet ingredient selection was diverse—chorizo, double-smoked applewood bacon, fontina are a few examples—but the chefs tend to use way too much cheese, which overpowers all other omelet ingredients and makes the meal almost too rich to enjoy. Though also on the healthy side is the brûléed grapefruit, which is a favorite of Bwog’s brunching companion.
Community Food & Juice is a nice choice for whenever your generous, patient parents come to visit, but for half the price, half the wait, and basically the same quality of food, Deluxe is a better, if a bit more boring, option.
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25 Comments
@Foodie I love Community!
@c'mon I’ve already said this on here, but you DON’T need to spend a ton of money to eat at CF&J. I’ve eaten plenty of brunches and lunches for under $20, and you can usually stay around the $15 mark pretty easily (including tax and tip). A burger at CF&J is in the exact same price range as a burger at deluxe. The difference is no more than $2.
If you’d rather eat out a few times less a month to stay in your budget and ensure that you’re getting the kind of food you actually want to pay for, CF&J is great. And really, guys, some of the items are pricey, but overall it’s not any more expensive than the other local places if you order right.
@anon agreed. deluxe is gross, and i’ve never spent more than $15 at community. plus, everytime i leave the place i’m stuffed.
@french toast chef beat an egg with some milk. add honey, cinnamon, sugar, flour to taste. cut day old brioche ~1.5 inch thick. let soak in mixture 30 sec each side. coat skillet in butter. cook on med high ~2-3 min each side
quarter a banana, roll in sugar (cinnamon sugar if you are fancy), flash over high heat in a skillet, < 1 min cover pecans with sugar, place in toaster oven for 2 min sorry for pointing out the trivialness and incredible cheapness of this "fantastically brilliant" dish
@agreed As someone without a magic credit card, I agree! It’s horrible the way people eat out all the time. CF&J is extremely expensive. I went there once as a special occasion, and that’s what it was, a very special occasion. Not a sunday brunch.
Though I must point out that going to John Jay dining hall isn’t much cheeper than CF&J
@food snob If you get up early enough, the wait at Community isn’t that long. The same thing goes for ANY hot brunch spot in the city (Clinton St., Balthazar, Eatery). Get there around 10 or 11 and your wait is minimal.
Frankly, the food is delicious and the prices aren’t about what you’d pay at any hot brunch place in New York. Are there cheaper options that are just as good? Yes… But Deluxe certainly is not one of them.
Community Food and Juice is a great, local alternative for people who don’t always want to make the trek down to Freeman’s for their hangover breakfast but don’t want to sacrifice on quality.
@Bethmann-Hollweg To be fair, Community really isn’t even that expensive, it just appears so to bourgeoisie college students who spend their time hoping to use Flex at Ham Del or Nussbaum.
In reality, Community is the only decent restaurant on Broadway in Morningside Heights.
All this leads me to believe that this article was authored by an individual who has never ventured south of 96th for a meal, unless it was to Grey’s Papaya.
@DHI Alright you obscure German naming yourself after sumbitch, while you go around accusing people of spending time hoping, explain to me why people should be abandoning somewhat overpriced places like Ham Del and Nussbaum for a place where there aren’t dollar signs or cents in the prices and sandwiches still start in double digits if you don’t want grilled cheese or a BLT. Just because their parents have enough cash to send them here, they should waste the rest of it?
Also, I don’t know who wrote this, but hell, there’s lots of cheap, good food options south of 96th that are a lot better than Gray’s Papaya, and I’m sure whoever it was went there.
@... you must be one of those kids with one of those magic credit cards that is attached to an imaginary bill you never see…
obnoxious self-styled neo-aristocrats are just that, really fucking annoying. so please, the next time you feel the need to admire your own status (imaginary or real), spare us all and find yourself a mirror to jerk off in.
@semi-rich bitch As one of those kids with a magic credit card with a bill I never see, I am frankly disgusted with the way my peers spend around here and how often they disrespect those who cannot afford to waste $20 on brunch.
yes, I’m in the position where I can spend a decent deal of dollars without ever seeing a bill, which makes new york oh so much fun, but honestly, it’s just disgusting to do so, especially when imposing on the majority that can’t.
you’re in college, be a student.
asian food isn’t nobu, it’s ramen.
@PLEASE lay off the em-dashes. not only do they usually show up as question marks on the homepage, they interrupt the flow of the reading and should only be used when absolutely necessary.
@i count three sets of em dashes. extravagant! decadent! unreadable!
@... i have wanted to try this place since it has opened. i have been unsuccessful. the procedure goes something like this:
1) bright idea! try that cf&j place
2) walk over there
3) look at menu on wall, shudder at ridiculous prices,
4) turn around
5) go somewhere else
@holy moly 20 dollars per person? for a meal that rests in between breakfast and lunch? who has that kind of money…?
@Jeez I, like most people, have never been to CF&J, so I think this article was pretty useful. I do find it odd though that the author gave a positive review to the food after comparing it to Deluxe, which is crap. But I don’t see the need to take off on a hyperbolic rant against the author/this piece.
@late shouldn’t Bwog have written this article months ago? Pick up the pace or you become a really slow and worse version of the Spec. Bwog in fact does seem to be a vapid waste of time.. i wonder if this is not part of its occasional charm.
@hey late, yo man, took me months to get into the damn place. who wants to wait for an hour during the weekend just to sit down (when ur hungover)? chillll outttt post #8!!!!!
first time i got in was a weekend evening when they opened their doors at 6pm (they take 4-6 off). this place runs like a club. even though the restaurant was empty, it still took 15 minutes to get seated.
the service is poor and the waitstaff is ANNOYING. too chipper or something. the food is damn good. they have this thing called ‘bowl o’ beets’ – it sounds like the most disgusting thing in the world, but it was actually sorta heavenly.
in the end, the check was hot damn expensive. but i felt all organic and shit…so i guess it was rewarding.
so, i have a love/hate relationship with the place.
@seriously? yes, you’ll wait at community. but it’s definitely worth it. it’s great food and it’s far more interesting that anywhere else in the area. and you don’t need to spend $20/pp either. comparing community to deluxe is absurd. bwog, why do all of your food pieces make me want to cry??
@certified green? by who?
@... the green restaurant association according to new york mag.
@bwog I have never been to CF&J but being a lifelong westcoaster I can assure you that what you describe does not have “all the affectations of a West Coast smoothie shop.”
They’re cheap and quick: you don’t sit down, and you don’t pay more than $3.50 for a smoothie
@... community food and juice is a certified green restaurant.
deluxe is a grease pit.
@Anonymous Lulz.
You say there’s less of a wait at Deluxe? I’ll remember that the next time I sit there for forty minutes waiting for shitty food. You also seemed to suggest that Deluxe is actually affordable in comparison. The 2 dollar difference between Deluxe and Tom’s is huge. The 2 dollar difference between Tom’s and this place? Not so much.
Credibility = ruined. Never write again, and never share your thoughts with another human, because they are worthless and incorrect.
Good luck to you in all other future endeavors.
@Er, “Never write again, and never share your thoughts with another human, because they are worthless and incorrect.”
I think someone is cranky because they didn’t have breakfast.
@um... homemade syrup?