In an era of nuclear families, divorce is not the trauma it used to be. Consider the little Emmy's parents, for instance. She is doing fine, as we (ie. SFist Sam) can attest, despite the founders having gone each their way. As we understand it, she stayed in the custody of her mom, while daddy started afresh, and partnered Blue Jay cafe.

Blue Jay is a little brother to Emmy's in many ways: It is in an upcoming location, at the fringes of some difficult neighborhood; it serves nicely priced tasty food; it makes up in charm and whimsy what it lacks in sophistication; it is named after the owner, here, Jay Foster. Concerning that last point, so much for the kinky theory, once articulated for Burger Joint, that the place was named for its set of initials.

Email us for tips, comments, suggestions, feedback.

What we will not talk much about, regarding Blue Jay cafe: the fried chicken ($10.95). It earned '05 best of honors from the Weekly (Blue Jay was best new cheap restaurant as well), so there. We do not want to start religion wars, as to is it better than Powell's?, so we'll just say it came with four moist pieces, both dark and white meats, crusted with a spicy crunch, and served with a heap of mac-n-cheese.

The food is really basic American comfort food. The fried chicken, for instance, but also the rich beef stew that our companion ordered, with steamed vegetables, provided us with a generous portion of hearty fare. A side of mashed potatoes came spiked with sage, a nice touch to enliven a notoriously boring dish. Nothing spells comfort like a bowl of soup, and the creamy spinash soup of the day ($4 for a bowl), served with a freshly made biscuit had a nice luscious texture. The gumbo ($6.50) had too much rice and too little else --we were hoping for some more protein-- but filled us nonetheless.

We stopped by for brunch on a week-end, and were instant converts. The crab cakes -- in a variation of the eggs benedict -- looked like they would be too bready, but were actually crab meat rich inside. The crab flavor was a tad stronger than what you would get at a fancier place, but nothing alarming, the poached eggs were perfectly runny, oozing the egg yolk at the press of the fork. And it was served on two halves of the delicious home-made biscuit. The andouille omelette ($8.95) had a fiery kick, with a spiced-up sausage chunked up in the omelette. The roasted quartered potatoes, rubbed in a peppery paprika dust, were absolutely delicious. We assumed some beef broth was used in their preparation, but the waitresses told us they were vegetarian compliant.

On both visits, we could not help but order dessert: once a rich chocolate cake which they serve only on week-ends with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, the second time a pecan pie. Both had a home-made quality to them. Read: they did not look picture perfect, but we wolfed them down.

The service is like the place: to the point, quirky and not necessarily sophisticated. The waitresses wore vintage T-shirts (Boston on Tour 1998!), there is some art made of recycled material on the walls, bright blue on one side, cream on the other, and a big skylight in the middle of the room: the room is bright and airy during brunch, and candle-lit for dinner. There is a huge horse-shoe counter in the middle, where many prefer to eat and read. The patrons are the young, hip, broke neighborhood people, and they found Blue Jay in droves.

Review in the Chron here and google-cached of the Examiner here.

Blue Jay
919 Divisadero St @ McAllister
447-6066