Our Tahoe editor judges every eggs Benedict by the one served at Fire Sign Cafe, a 42-year-old breakfast and lunch institution on Tahoe’s West Shore. No matter how many times she visits, she can't bring herself to order anything else.
I judge every eggs Benedict by the one served at Fire Sign Cafe, a 42-year-old breakfast and lunch institution on Tahoe’s West Shore. It’s not simply that the egg is poached perfectly every single time, or that you can mix-and-match a version with Canadian bacon and another with avocado and tomatoes.
The reason Fire Sign’s eggs Benedict is so good has everything to do with the hollandaise. It’s thicker, richer and more savory than any other I’ve tasted. The hollandaise is so delicious that I want to use the side of country potatoes on my plate to mop up every last drop., when I slide into one of their wooden booths and read the two-sided menu crammed full of eggs, pancakes, salads and sandwiches, I can’t bring myself to order anything else. That’s the kind of brunch spot Fire Sign Cafe is. It’s a place that easily earns regular customers who always come back. Whether it’s a traditional stop on your family vacation or you’re a longtime local, you know your order — and if you come often enough, the servers know your order, too. The restaurant’s vibe feels just as familiar and comforting as its food. The building is an old house with low wooden beams, windows streaming sunlight, a stone fireplace and walls full of old-timey photos.Julie Brown / SFGATE Fire Sign Cafe was established in 1978, and for most of those years, the restaurant was owned by the Young family. But in early August, they signed the papers to sell Fire Sign to a new owner, Rick Brown. Rest assured, Brown knows exactly what makes Fire Sign Cafe so special to its patrons — and he doesn’t want to change it. “Just keep the tradition going,” Brown says. “It deserves that, and the community of the West Shore deserves having that iconic piece of history there as it used to be and as it will be now.” Brown is a longtime West Shore resident with deep roots in the area. His grandfather started a ski area at Homewood Mountain Resort in 1936. Today, Brown also owns and operates two other iconic and historic restaurants on Tahoe’s West Shore: Chambers Landing and Swiss Lakewood. Chambers Landing was built in 1863; the bar on the pier was built a few years later and may be one of the oldest structures on Lake Tahoe. And Brown says this year was Swiss Lakewood’s 94th. “One thing that means a lot to me is keeping the history,” Brown says. “The West Shore has always been a place that’s family-oriented and that’s what I’ve always wanted to bring back.” Regulars at Fire Sign Cafe keep coming back for their favorite items on the menu. The restaurant's new owner says those dishes are here to stay.Because Brown has a reputation for preserving the character of Tahoe’s well-loved restaurants, the Youngs approached him last fall to buy Fire Sign. Bob and Christi Young, in a partnership with their daughter and her husband, still own Fire Sign’s sister restaurant in Montana: The Echo Lake Cafe in Big Fork has a menu that’s almost identical to Fire Sign’s. Brown said the Youngs could have sold Fire Sign “to someone in Silicon Valley,” but they wanted their restaurant to be in the hands of someone local who would carry on its traditions. They were supposed to close escrow in March. However, the pandemic delayed the deal until August. Changing ownership during a pandemic is no easy task, especially when customers like me have such high expectations for things like perfect eggs Benedict. The credit for that consistency on the plate goes to chef Gumaro Martinez, who has been cooking eggs and potatoes in the restaurant’s tiny kitchen for 28 years. Martinez is also the kitchen manager at Chambers Landing. “He can flip eggs and plate food and hold a complete conversation and look you right in the eyes as he’s doing it,” says Pete Kertesz, Fire Sign’s general manager. “He’s very calm, too. I’ve never worked with a chef that’s so calm in a very, very busy kitchen. He’s a really good leader in the kitchen.” The kitchen is tiny, especially for a restaurant that consistently has hour-long waits for most of its summer days. The pantry is organized like a jigsaw puzzle, Kertesz says. Every square inch of space in the kitchen is used up — they don’t even have enough room to install a fryer. That’s why they serve chips and salsa with their sandwiches instead of french fries, Kertesz says. The window to pass food through is about 4 feet wide and a foot-and-a-half deep.
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