The most seductive phrase in the English language is “Breakfast Served All Day.” Pair this with “Homemade Huckleberry Milkshakes” and you need look no further for your next meal. We found exactly such a place while driving through Lakeside: the Homestead Café. Part café, part antique store, everything is for sale at the Homestead. We sat at a hundred year old table that could have been ours for just $550. All manner of brick-a-brack lined the walls—from saws and wooden snowshoes to old coke glasses and porcelain teapots. I kept hitting my head against a beautiful wicker fishing basket. This was entirely my fault, however, as I have a tendency to slouch against walls. In fact, despite having over a thousand antiques for sale, the Homestead didn’t feel at all crowded. It was spacious and fun—a far cry from the usual claustrophobic-walls-closing-in panic that I usually experience in antique shops.
But enough about the antiques, you want to hear about the “Breakfast Served All Day.” They are a bit proud of their food (which is a tactful way of saying that breakfast cost more than it should have, but then, the prices around Flathead tend to be a little more inflated than elsewhere). It was your pretty standard café fare. I had eggs and hashbrowns and toast and spicy sausage. My wife had eggs benedict. The hashbrowns were crisp and buttery and perfect. The sausage was from Redneck Meats—tangy and spicy. To two people who had spent three days camping and had stayed up far too late at a wedding the night before, the Homestead hit the spot perfectly. The huckleberry milkshake to go was the ideal finish to a very good breakfast. In all, the Homestead was exactly what we were looking for—a classic diner food with a touch of charm.
