Sunrise Cafe & Bakery — Restaurant in Panama City Beach

I so badly wanted to love this place. I'm still on the fence. Just so yall know..We've been vacationing to PCB for several years. We do quite a bit of traveling. I ALWAYS try to be fair when leaving reviews. To the actual review... We went twice so I could give them another chance while also trying something different than the 1st time. Day 1. Place is ADORABLE. Clean, super nice staff. It's locally owned which makes this even harder. We got the ham egg cheese croissant. Ham was disgusting & nothing but fat. Croissant was good, not the fatty ham. Husband got hashbrowns & biscuits & gravy. Hashbrowns are barely cooked, like soggy kinda. Biscuits & gravy were good. I got the breakfast burrito with suasage/egg/cheese/hashbrowns. It was good, lacked any salt AT ALL, which made it bland. We got an iced vanilla coffee, & a danish. Day 2. Chicken biscuit, sausage egg cheese croissant, "cinnamon" rolls, apple fritter, coffee. I was really hoping that day 2 they'd get redeemed. The chicken had a decent flavor but we couldn't eat it because it was SO fatty like the ham. The sausage croissant was really good. Coffees good. Cinnamon rolls are good but they have apple in them which completely took away from it being a cinnamon roll. They were good but not a cinnamon roll in my opinion. Overall I'd give this place a 3.9. Stay away from ham & chicken, your food will definitely need some salt, sausage is really good, eggs cooked well. Coffee is ok. Everyone has a different taste, some people don't mind straight fat. But for the 4 of us, we were a bit underwhelmed. Again. The place is adorable & staff are super sweet. But unfortunately for us this just wasn't it. It is super convenient for us though, right across the street from our condo. We might go back for pastries & coffee. I really wish I could have left a better review. But try it for yourself, others seem to absolutely love this place. Also, I want to add that their prices don't match what you get. Overpriced for straight fatty ham sandwich or chicken biscuit. But at least now we know. Reading other reviews I've seen that we are not the only ones who have had similar experience. Bland fatty food. Pastries & coffee good. To the owners, I am sorry for the review but I have to be honest. We tried twice. Once around 10am, then next morning @ 8am. Definitely get there early for better selection...

Edit after recieving response from owner; I changed my stars to 3 from 1 due to a rapid response and explanation from the owner.

Original response: Went in around 8am Tuesday April 12, 2022. There were only a couple of customers there so they weren't busy.

You grab a menu at the door and walk up to order at the counter.

I ordered the traditional breakfast with 2 eggs over medium, sausage, grits and white toast. Eggs were over-easy not medium; the sausage was burned and hard like a hockey-puck, toast was cold, grits were good, though. I had a decaf coffee which was good. A server brought us our food; when I asked for cream and sugar she pointed to a counter across the room, which apparently meant I was to go get it. She was too busy chatting with a family that was eating there. Guess we weren't her type of customer or something, not sure.

Wife had grits and bacon, she said they were ok.

One thing that we do NOT like is when you go to a place like this where you pay and basically serve yourself, they ask for a tip up-front...this is NEVER a good sign and that alone will make sure we never return (to the Owner Alex - putting a tip line on the receipt at the ordering counter compels people to tip as it makes customers feel if they don't tip, their food will be subpar; therefore my wife tipped, and our food was still subpar). As far as asking for food to be replaced if bad...not an acceptable answer. The place wasn't busy, the food was still not good; the opportunity for the food to be fresh and cooked appropriately was missed by your staff.

Parking is in the rear around the block and very cramped.

All over not the best...

I initially was attracted to this place by the great reviews and the name of it - my grandparents who both passed used to live in the city of Sunrise in Broward County when they first moved to Florida over 30 years ago. Today was my second day having breakfast there with my family and this place does not disappoint. As a small business owner myself, I like supporting locally owned establishments as much as possible - Sunrise cafe is definitely one that deserves the abundance of support that it is getting. I actually was attended to by one of the owners who runs this establishment with their family. I was really impressed with how involved her kids were with delivering orders and keeping up with the cleanliness and overall appearance of the cafe. You can tell that even though they are young, they appreciate the hard work and dedication that their parents have put into their establishment. Both visits, my family and I enjoyed their fresh to order made breakfast meals, baked goods (unfortunately today at 10am they were already sold out of their fresh donuts), Milky Way latte, and their Mexican chocolate latte! We have been staying at the holiday inn resort which is about a two minute drive from there, however, we just walked on both occasions since we knew that the parking at Sunrise Café was limited (it’s about a 10 minute walk from the resort so not that long), plus after eating all that amazing food we needed to walk off those calories before heading to the beach. Whenever we come back to PCB, we will always remote to patronize this...