MIAGuide
Where To Have Breakfast When You Accidentally Stay Out All Night
Restaurants to help you start to feel like a human again.
No one ever really means to stay out until sunrise, it just sort of happens - like puberty or consuming an entire pint of ice cream. But even though you didn’t plan for it, it’s now 8am and you need to eat something because the bouncer at Space wouldn’t share his granola bar with you. These spots are solid choices when you finally decide to call it a night. They’re all pretty easy to get to, located in and around areas where you very well might be partying till an offensive hour, and have all the bacon you’ve been thinking about since 4am.
Need some late-night recommendations in case you’re not making it till sunrise? We have those too.
The Spots
Jimmy’s is a classic diner in MiMo that’s been around since the ’60s and has no doubt seen worse than your unwashed hair and bloodshot eyes. It’s a great place to slouch in a booth, put on sunglasses, and silently go to town on a pile of hashbrowns, eggs, and Jimmy’s very good and quite large jumbo country sausage. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, go for the banana pancakes.
Maybe you missed dinner and need something a little more substantial than a couple of eggs. As long as it’s not Sunday - the one day a week this Edgewater spot is closed - Enriqueta’s is a convenient stop whether you’re crossing the bridge after a long night in South Beach or leaving Downtown with a ringing in your ears. It’s also one of Miami’s best Cuban restaurants and has breakfast specials under $5, along with a novela of big sandwiches. We generally go with the pan con bistec or the classic Cubano - but if you spent the last six hours dancing then you might need the croqueta preparada, which is basically just a Cubano with croquetas stuffed inside.
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One of Miami’s most peaceful little cafes happens to be around the corner from E11even, and the coffee is good enough to help you forget about that one time you spent $400 there on a bottle of $40 vodka. Come here for a fantastic breakfast sandwich, great cup of coffee, or get all of the above to-go from their ventanita. You can go with a simple but perfect pour over or opt for more adventurous things like a rosemary cold brew with lime juice. They do breakfast and lunch as well. The Runny & Everything sandwich is one of the best bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches we’ve found in Miami—thanks mostly to the everything brioche bun. This place also has free WiFi and is usually chill enough during the week to get some work done. Expect a crowd on the weekends though.
Las Olas is a great ventanita in South Beach, which means that not everyone even has to get out of the car to have breakfast here. Of course, you can park and walk inside the simple cafeteria-style Cuban restaurant to have a seat and eat your food. Or you can just order it all to-go at the sidewalk window and enjoy your medianoche, croquetas, and lechon in the comfort of your backseat.
Mi Colombia is a tiny Colombian restaurant in North Beach with only counter seating. But they serve some really good Colombian food for very affordable prices. They also have that perfect recovery meal known as bandeja paisa for only $11. The massive plate comes with steak, fried pork rind, beans, plantains, rice, avocado, and an egg. And it’s not just the quantity of food that’s impressive. That steak is thin with just a touch of pink in the center, and the plantains go so well with the saltiness of the pork. Pair it with one of their fresh juices, and you might just have the energy to head back to E11even and drain the remainder of your checking account.
There’s actually quite an interesting story behind Royal Castle, the Miami-born chain that once had over 100 locations across the South. But it’s possible that your brain is currently melting, so we’ll get to the point. This 24/7 restaurant in Gladeview serves all-day breakfast and - what you really want in this situation - amazing slider “six-packs.” The mini-burgers have soft buns, thin patties, diced onions, a pickle, melted American cheese, and are six very good reasons to not go to bed yet.
Yes, placing an online order at El Bagel often involves long wait times. But you have a strategic advantage, you degenerate night owl. Since you’re already awake and moving, you can place an order at exactly 8am, when the MiMo shop opens and wait times are quite short. If you time it perfectly, you can swing by on the way home and tear into an absolutely perfect bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich before you hibernate for the next ten hours.
Chug’s serves the food of a fancy restaurant, but the Coconut Grove diner is casual enough that you can still show up in last night’s outfit. They have both strong coffee and cocktails in case you want to keep the party going. The food is the main reason you come here, though. The cast iron pancake is excellent. But if you’re really hungry, go for the substantial La Completa, a hefty plate of three eggs, potatoes, and Cuban toast. A slice of passion fruit cream pie for dessert is also a very good idea.
This is important so listen up: 7th is only open during the week. So if you're looking for a weekend breakfast, keep scrolling. But if you went hard during the week, head to this casual Allapattah breakfast spot. They have a menu full of really good NYC-inspired dishes, like a great B.E.C., a pastrami sandwich, one of our favorite hot dogs in town, and some of Miami's best bagels. The restaurant is located in a sunny, peaceful space on the ground floor of an office building, with indoor and outdoor seating.
After an all-nighter involving multiple rounds of tequila shots, you may be understandably concerned about the state of your body. Under the Mango Tree in South Beach is a good place to go apologize to your organs for what just happened. Give them some kind of smoothie, acai bowl, or vegan sandwich - it’s all pretty healthy, but everything here also tastes good. Plus, it’s a relaxing, quiet shop that is the antithesis of whatever noisy dark room you spent the last seven hours in. This place opens at 8am during the week, and 9am on the weekends.
This Downtown breakfast spot checks off just about all the traits we want in this kind of scenario: it’s relatively quiet and dim, and you order at the counter - which means you won’t have to interact much with a server who’s about 300% more talkative than you can handle right now. They serve solid egg sandwiches, as well as fried chicken sandwiches and sugary pancakes and waffles. They also do mimosas in case you’re not ready to call it a night (morning?) yet.
La Sandwicherie is one of the undisputed champions of Miami late-night food, but their South Beach location opens up bright and early. They serve breakfast from 7am-12pm, when you can grab an orange juice or coffee and several sandwiches, including a very good one with mozzarella and a hard-boiled egg. Order it on a croissant rather than the baguette, because that feels more breakfast-appropriate. And, hey, maybe they’ll remember you from five hours ago when you took a break from Mac’s and almost got in a fight with that butthead who was hogging the bottle of vinaigrette.
First and foremost, we must make it very clear that Zak the Baker is closed on Saturday. We cannot imagine a sadder image than you and a bunch of tired, hungry friends finally reaching the front doors of Zak after a long night only to discover that all the delicious stuff is locked inside, out of reach. You’ve been warned. But every other day of the week (excluding Jewish holidays), Zak opens at 7am serving incredibly good toasts, pastries, and usually a few egg dishes you can mop up with a chunk of bread. Definitely get the babka, and if you don’t finish it there, use a loaf as a pillow on the car ride home.
