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A bradley beach café rediscovers a small legend

Put simply, kids are to a candy store what adults are to The Buttered Biscuit Café. This Bradley Beach favorite and its menu of indulgent, eccentric, breakfast and lunch dishes has quietly, steadily, developed mythic status among local foodies. Owned by Liz and Dave McAllister, who are as passionate about food as they are about each other, the café was born in 2011. Notorious for putting fun spins on ordinary dishes, The Buttered Biscuit has a warm, cool, French café-inspired ambiance, and prides itself on using the freshest of ingredients in each one of its crave-worthy dishes.

Liz’s great-grandparents owned Asbury Park’s Jerry’s Tavern years ago, and Spring Lake native Dave started working in the restaurant business at the age of 14.

Famous for their insanely good buttered biscuits (obviously), Liz daily hand-makes around 70,000 each year at the café, while Dave is responsible for the gravy that douses the little wonders. That gravy, incidentally, is made every couple of days, as the spices need time to set to ensure the best flavoring. Made with high-quality beef and pork sausage, fresh herbs, and some other secret fixings, it is rich and hearty, but not at all greasy or heavy—which is a difficult dance to do.

Consistency is important to the duo, and that surely has a lot to do with the café’s success. With a menu based on what they themselves enjoy eating, breakfast plays a big part, as it’s Liz and Dave’s favorite meal. The breakfast menu is made up of a slew of omelet options such as the Cali Crab (lump crab meat, avocado, jack cheese, and homemade salsa), an array of Buttered Biscuit Bennies (their version of Eggs Benedict) like the Copenhagen (with caper cream cheese, red onion, smoked salmon, baby spinach, and two poached eggs with hollandaise), and a variety of flap jacks such as Sweet Lorraine’s Ho Cakes (three Southern-style cornmeal pancakes with butter and raspberry jam).

Wraps, salads, and sandwiches combine to form the lunch menu. Some standouts include Jaime’s Black Bean Burger (black beans, cilantro, and red onion, patty grilled and served with avocado, lettuce, and tomato), the Spinach and Warm Goat Cheese Salad, and the “Baja Wrap” (Cajun seasoned grilled shrimp, homemade salsa, lettuce, and avocado). Dave’s corned beef is also a favorite, and it takes him five hours to get through the six-step process that results in the delicacy. The couple sold over 9,000 pounds in a year.

Cellini Spread

Even given all this, café is what it is today due to another ingredient—Liz and Dave’s simple, unalloyed love for what they’ve created. Thankful for their customers, and proud of what they do, the pair is› poised to help Bradley Beach denizens and further-flung visitors rediscover—among other things—the wonder of the simple biscuit.