Cafes in Bradenton

For nearly two decades, 1st Street Cafe & Catering has served up buffet and sit-down style meals for parties around Manatee and Sarasota County. Its physical location has a café that dishes out classic American breakfasts and lunches.

During the morning hours, diners dig into a Lucky Seven breakfast sandwich stuffed with fried eggs and sausage or a country-fried steak smothered in gravy. During lunch, they tear into grilled-steak and pork-tenderloin sandwiches and juicy burgers. One such option, the Challenger double burger, allows patrons to stuff their mouths with 12 ounces of burger meat, crispy bacon, and slices of cheese, and to get at least 1.5 high-fives from nearby diners when it’s all gone.

Packaged by the ounce, The Spice & Tea Exchange hand-mixes spices from around the world to create their unique blends and rubs. Banish blandness from any meal with a wide variety of spices (starting at $0.99 per ounce), more than 60 custom blends and rubs (starting at $4.89 per ounce), and a ton of salts, peppers, and chili powders (starting at $0.49 per ounce). Office workers can wean themselves off the teats of the break room's coffee-cow with dozens of loose-leaf teas ($4.89 per ounce) sweetened with more than 12 flavor-infused sugars ($4.89 per ounce), including blueberry sugar, spicy habanero sugar, and espresso sugar. The Spice & Tea Exchange's huge variety of flavors make it easy to fulfill long-held cooking fantasies, be it a robust hickory-flavored manticore or topping a freshly grilled cheeseburger with unicorn-radish.

Brewing only blue-ribbon coffee beans, The Beanz Man also pleases palates with a menu packed with baked goods, paninis, platters, soups, desserts, and more. Lead wayward longings to the continent of contentment with a mocha latte ($3.45+) or house gourmet coffee ($1.75+) and accompany cravings to the shores of satiation with a biscotti ($1.25) or a slice of coffee cake ($2.50). With seven sandwiches—such as the honey-glazed turkey and provolone ($6.95), and four paninis, including the fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil ($6.95)—lunchers find reason to linger.

The gastronomic gurus at The Savory Street Café and Bakery conjure a cornucopia of signature artisan breads to adorn their menu of breakfast- and lunch-centric fare. Roust slumbering appetites or hibernating woodland creatures with the lox-and-egg omelet, which accompanies its namesake ingredients with an entourage of cream cheese and chives; or, oil rusty jaw hinges with eggs benedict, english muffins elevating a stack of poached eggs, asparagus tips, and hollandaise sauce. The chef's signature Creative Craters dish stuffs crater artisan bread with eggs and cross-cultural ingredients such as spanish chorizo and francophiliac brie; a croissant filled with India-inspired curried chicken salad introduces lunchers to bread as flaky as Howard Hughes’ flint collection. Accompany the feast with offerings from the beverage menu, such as a white chocolate mocha or a chai latte.

As a café, bakery, and art gallery, Burns Court Café provides pleasant sensory overload for its guests, whether they’re enjoying live jazz music or staring in a daze at the Italian gelato and sorbet selections. Here, French café fare—such as daily quiches and melt-in-your-mouth croque-monsieur (the Frenchy take on grilled ham and cheese)—merges with real Italian coffee and Boar’s Head meats and cheeses. Once monthly, the café features a new exhibition with work from local artists.

The colorful crystals of snow cones. Cold beer and the rosy cumulus of cotton candy. The foods and drinks at Beach Bites call to mind a beachside carnival. Sandwiches there range from a Chicago-style italian beef with giardiniera to a pulled-pork construction that wouldn’t be out of place in Memphis or on a list of things it is funny to throw on a butler. Along with the eatery’s specialties, customers can build their own sandwiches, filling out a checklist of desired meats, cheese, and toppings. Fruit smoothies with a splash of wine or snow cones topped off with Yuengling lager or one of the other beers on tap add a twist to standard icy treats.