What it is
Matt’s Big Breakfast is a small breakfast restaurant on 1st Street in downtown Phoenix with a one-page menu and a reputation far larger than its dining room. It opened in late October 2004 on a quiet downtown corner, at a time when downtown Phoenix had almost nowhere to eat before noon, and it became the city’s default answer to the question of where to have breakfast: eggs cooked to order, griddlecakes, thick-cut bacon, corned beef hash made in the kitchen, a waffle, and a burger fried in butter for the people who slept in. It moved half a block north to a bigger room some years ago, and the company now has locations at Biltmore Plaza on Camelback Road, in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor, in Gilbert and in Glendale. The downtown room is still the one people mean when they say Matt’s.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Scottsdale has a very good breakfast culture of its own, and our best brunch note runs through it, from the Breakfast Club to Butters. Most of it is brunch in the Scottsdale sense: long menus, big plates, mimosas. Matt’s is the other thing, a short menu cooked carefully, at a counter and a dozen tables, in a city neighborhood. It is the breakfast you have when the day’s plan is already downtown, which on a Scottsdale visit means the Heard and the Phoenix Art Museum up Central, Heritage Square and the Science Center down the street, or a Diamondbacks day game. Do not drive 22 minutes for breakfast alone; drive 22 minutes for a downtown morning that starts here.
The practical version
Open daily 7 AM to 2 PM, no reservations. Weekend waits run 30 to 45 minutes in the middle of the morning; weekdays before 8 are easy. Metered parking on the surrounding streets, or ride the light rail to the Roosevelt and Central stop and walk two blocks. Two people eat for about what one person pays for brunch in Old Town.
When to go
Weekday mornings, early, any month. The downtown room has no real patio life, so the season matters less than the day of the week: Saturday and Sunday from 8:30 to 11 are the crush, and the restaurant hands you a wait rather than a table. The hour before the 2 PM close is the quiet trick, and the kitchen cooks the same menu until the end. In spring-training season, when Scottsdale’s own breakfast rooms fill with Giants fans, downtown is noticeably calmer on a weekday.
What to order
The corned beef hash and eggs, which the restaurant itself describes as a favorite from the early days, and the steak and eggs, which is the other dish regulars mention. Griddlecakes to share. The Hog & Chick, which is the bacon-and-egg sandwich, if you are eating on the way somewhere. The Big Butter Burger exists for the person who got up at eleven. Coffee is good and refilled. The menu is short enough that the server will not need to explain it.
With kids
One of the easiest breakfasts in the metro for small children: the food is familiar, the room is loud enough that nobody notices yours, and the menu takes thirty seconds to read. The only hard part is the wait, so bring something for the sidewalk. Afterward, Heritage Square is a five-minute drive south, with the Arizona Science Center and the Children’s Museum of Phoenix within a few blocks of it; our Scottsdale with kids note has the downtown-morning plan.
The neighborhood
Matt’s sits on the north edge of downtown where it meets Roosevelt Row, the arts district, so the walk while you wait is a real one: murals, galleries, coffee. Two blocks west is Central Avenue and the light rail; six blocks north is the Heard Museum; the Phoenix Art Museum is a few blocks past that. If the group splits, the people who do not want eggs can get coffee on Roosevelt and meet you at the museum.
The story
In 2004, downtown Phoenix was a place people drove to for a game or a concert and left. There was almost nowhere to eat breakfast, and the few lunch counters closed when the office workers went home. Matt’s opened that October on a quiet corner with a small room, a shorter menu, and a commitment to cooking everything from scratch at a time when most breakfast places in the Valley were reheating. The line formed within months and never really left, and the restaurant became part of the story the city told about downtown coming back: the condo towers, the light rail that opened in 2008, the Arizona State campus that arrived downtown the same decade, the Roosevelt Row galleries. When the room got too small the restaurant moved half a block north into a larger space on the same street, and the company began opening elsewhere, first at the Biltmore, then the airport, then the East and West Valleys. The downtown room remained the flagship, and the menu barely moved.
The Scottsdale connection
The Valley’s breakfast obsession has two capitals, and Scottsdale is the other one. The Scottsdale version grew out of the resort morning, the big brunch, the patio and the mimosa; our best brunch note is a tour of it. Matt’s is the city version, a counter, a short menu and a cook who has made the same hash for two decades. The two are not rivals so much as two ends of a spectrum, and a visitor who has done the Scottsdale brunch circuit will understand something about Phoenix by eating here once. The Biltmore Plaza location on Camelback Road, fifteen minutes from Old Town, is also the closest Matt’s to Scottsdale and the one locals use on a weekday.
Getting there
From Old Town, west on Indian School Road or McDowell Road to Central Avenue, south to Roosevelt Street, then one block east to 1st Street; the restaurant is on the east side of the street, north of Roosevelt. Metered street parking on 1st and on Roosevelt; the meters are enforced on weekdays. The light rail Roosevelt and Central stop is two short blocks west, which makes this the one downtown breakfast you can reach by train from Tempe or from the Camelback corridor stations. Our getting around note has the light rail and rideshare details.