Buns on the Run — Closed

Same old story, twice a day on our commute we drive by yet another great spot. Unfortunately we don’t think about going because they are a hundred feet off our route and just out of our line of sight. Finally, though, after a busy Saturday morning of errands, we were wanting breakfast, and we were wanting something new. That’s when we remembered Buns on the Run.

It’s hard to get a good picture of a restaurant’s food unless you can go several times and try a wide variety of items. Or if you show up with a starved Squad o’ Squirrels and order the works. I had the spinach and mushroom omelet with feta cheese. The fillings were nice, and the egg was surprisingly good, light, fluffy, and perfectly cooked. I also had two sausage patties and a good and generous side of hash browns with cheese.

There were tremendously thick potato pancakes, crispy outside and creamy inside. They were sprinkled with powdered sugar and came with red hot-spiced applesauce. I prefer thin savory potato pancakes, but Mama Squirrel loved their density paired with the sharp sweetness of the applesauce.

Squirrelly, Jr., went for the seriously sweet stuff. He chose the Swedish crepes, thin crepes filled with sweetened cream cheese and covered with lingonberry butter. Excellent choice. The crepes were tender and the cream cheese was rich. Thanks to Ikea, we are big lingonberry fans. They gave enough sweetness and moisture to bring the whole dish together.

We also tried both their toasted homemade bread and homemade biscuits. The biscuits were big and fluffy. The bread was delicious. Both were perfect for sopping up the leftover lingonberry butter.

Mama and I were curious to see if lunch would be as good as breakfast. The only way to do it was to sneak away from work for a long lunch. We were willing to sacrifice for the cause.

Buns on the Run offers a nice variety of sandwiches and salads, including tempting shrimp and crab salads. It was the plate lunches that we came for though. The menu offers lots (and lots) of choices. We’re suspicious of too-big menus, but we had faith. While we pored over the menu, we nibbled at homemade bread and cornbread. The cornbread was good. The bread was nice in texture but could have used another pinch of salt in the dough.

The day we were there, chicken and dumplings and salmon croquettes were the meat choices. Normally, Mama and I like to get different items to compare and share, but we both have salmon patty scarring from childhood, so we both went for the chicken and dumplings.

Mama had purple hull peas and mashed potatoes with her plate. The peas were tasty as were the potatoes. The gravy was richly creamy but could have used a pinch of pepper. I had turnip greens and green beans. The green beans were nice broad Italian beans cooked with diced onions. The greens were good. The best part was that they came with lots of pot likker. I crumbled up a huge piece of cornbread to soak it all up. I was in heaven. Nothing lived up to the good old days of family meals, but Buns on the Run did have the best plate lunch we have had in a long time.

Don’t be silly. Of course we had dessert. We had a moist apple bundt cake that was lightly spiced and full of soft chunks of apple. We also had lemon icebox pie that was so good that it actually did make me think of the good old days. I can’t wait to get back to have that again and to try the rest.

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Buns on the Run — Closed
2150 Elzey Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-2867