As our regular readers know, we here at Offbeat Eats have been trying to avail ourselves of the various community meals that spring up around the region. Looking through the local Kearsarge Shopper as we approached the 4th of July holiday weekend, I noticed an announcement for Warner, NH’s United Church of Warner’s 4th of July Community Breakfast. Since we didn’t have anything planned for that morning, we figured it would be good to drive down to Warner and check it out.
The United Church of Warner is the result of a decades-ago merger of the Baptist and Congregational churches in Warner, and sits on East Main Street across from the Post Office. The 4th of July Breakfast is an annual affair, although it’s worth noting that it’s not always held on the actual 4th of July; like the rest of Warner’s 4th of July celebrations, many years if the actual 4th isn’t on or adjacent to a weekend, the entire slate of events moves to a more convenient weekend date. But this year, since the actual 4th of July was indeed a weekend day, this year they held it on the fourth, scheduled from 7:30 to 11am to allow folks to enjoy a breakfast either before or after the other festivities like the parade.
While I tend to use “Church Basement Breakfast” as a bit of a shorthand for these sorts of events, often holding events over in adjacent fellowship halls, United Church of Warner actually holds these breakfasts in their church basement, the big gathering room immediately below the sanctuary (which we did duck up and check afterwards, they’ve got some nice stained glass). The breakfast itself is run buffet-style: grab a nice spot (we grabbed a table near the door that turned out to have one current, and one hopeful NH legislator; such is the ways of New Hampshire), grab a plate, and head on through the line.
The Warner breakfast has a pretty consistent line-up from year to year: pancakes with or without blueberries. waffles, sausage. sliced melon. scrambled eggs. home fries, and beverages. And of course, like any self-respecting Northern New England breakfast affair, the maple syrup for this breakfast real Warner-made maple syrup as well. Its quite a good spread, and the blueberry pancakes were particularly good this year.
After some great conversation (particularly about the history of Warner, and some encourage to do another visit to the New Hampshire Telephone Museum just down the street, which we have indeed visited and enjoyed in the past), we headed upstairs for a quick self tour of the church, and got on our way to visit the Farmers Market. All-in-all, one of the area’s better summertime breakfasts, and a good one to mark on next year’s calendar.
