By Susan McDonald

Aaron Linn is the caption of Linn's Main Bin in Cambria

Cambria’s East Village is pretty quiet in the early morning hours, before the shops and galleries open for business. Few cars are parked along Main Street. The sidewalks are empty except for a merchant or two sweeping up in front of their stores.

Most mornings, the sky is icy blue and a cool breeze brings a damp chill up from nearby Santa Rosa Creek. The cold inspires an immediate search for a hot breakfast. It’s a good time to duck into Linn’s Main Bin Restaurant (2277 Main St.) for some hot coffee and hearty food.

Linn’s is warm and inviting any time, but especially so on a frosty North Coast morning. Open daily at 7:30 a.m., Linn’s breakfast menu offers up enough carbohydrates and protein to get you through the most hectic of days. The restaurant is inviting, with sunlight streaming through the windows and illuminating the warm oak interior. But it’s the food that brings in locals and visitors alike.

Linn’s, an original Cambria restaurant owned by locals John and Renee Linn, is known for its baked goods, pies, jams and preserves. Linn’s serves delicious meals all day at their restaurant in the heart of Cambria’s historic downtown. It’s a family-friendly restaurant offering up something for just about every appetite.

The restaurant proudly boasts, “All our breakfast breads are prepared fresh daily from scratch,” and it shows. The fruit and cream muffins ($1.95) are extra-large and extra-rich concoctions of cream filling with apricots or olallieberries. Scones ($1.50) are filled with raspberries, chocolate chips, apricots, lemon, raisins apples or - what else - olallieberries.

Linn’s put Cambria’s olallieberries on the map more than 20 years ago. The Linns originally started out with a berry farm just outside of town, on Santa Rosa Creek Road. So what exactly is an olallieberry? Aaron Linn, John and Renee’s son, explains that it’s a loganberry crossed with a youngberry, or what we know as a blackberry crossed with a European raspberry.

It’s deep purple in color and tartly delicious in taste, perfect for pies and jams. Renee Linn started making scrumptious pies and jams whipped up at their family farm and sold to visitors there to pick berries - and Linn’s has been growing ever since. The family now also owns and operates a second restaurant in San Luis Obispo (corner of Marsh and Chorro Streets).

Both restaurants serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night desserts.

On a crisp Cambria morning, good choices at Linn’s are the Bueno Breakfast Burrito ($6.95), a pile of scrambled eggs, black bean turkey chili, Ortega chilies and cheddar cheese wrapped in a sun-dried tomato tortilla and topped with cheddar and salsa. Also satisfying is the Country Breakfast ($7.95) of scrambled eggs, grilled ham steak and three freshly baked biscuits smothered in sausage gravy. And there are the griddle breakfasts ($7.50): two eggs any style with bacon sausage or ham and a choice of polenta cakes, pancakes, French toast or Belgian waffle.

For cereal eaters, there’s something delicious, too. Old-fashioned hot oatmeal ($4.50) is served with sliced almonds, brown sugar, raisins and milk. Honey rice pudding ($5.25) is made with brown rice, raisins, eggs, milk, and a touch of honey and cinnamon. Both cereals come with your choice of muffin, toast, scone or English muffin.

Early mornings may be quiet at Linn’s, but the popular restaurant gets busy as the day goes on. They don’t take reservations, but there’s a well-stocked gift shop to browse through while you wait for a table.

And pie - just about every kind of pie you can imagine. No room for a slice after breakfast? No problem. You can buy one from the bakery case and take it home for later.

Linn’s, 4095 Burton Dr., Cambria, 927-5007. Open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Susan McDonald is a freelance writer based in Cambria.

Back to the Top