What's the Best Time to Grab Breakfast at 12 Hawks?

Go before 8am on weekdays or after 11am on weekends. Those are the two windows with the shortest waits and the most relaxed service. Everything else falls somewhere in between, and knowing why helps you plan around it.

Weekday mornings: early is easy

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the door opens quiet. Most people showing up before 8am are heading to work or dropping kids at school on the way. Tables turn fast because nobody's lingering. If you want coffee, eggs, and a booth without waiting, this is your window.

Between 8am and 9:30am, things pick up. This is when retirees, contractors on a break, and parents who just did the school drop-off all land at once. It's not chaos, but you might wait five to ten minutes for a table on a Wednesday.

After 9:30am on weekdays, it thins out again until lunch starts creeping in around 11am.

Weekend mornings: plan for a wait between 9 and 11

Saturday and Sunday are a different story. The sweet spot is right at open, before 8:30am, or after 11am when the crowd shifts toward lunch orders. In between, expect a real wait. Families come in after morning errands, youth sports teams stop in after early games, and anyone in from out of town for a Grant County event tends to land in that same two-hour block.

If you've got small kids and don't want to manage a 20-minute wait with them, weekend mornings before 8:30 are worth the earlier alarm.

Game days change the math

If there's a big game on, especially early kickoffs on Sunday, breakfast crowds and game crowds start to overlap. People show up to eat and stay to watch. That's fine if you're doing the same thing, but if you just want breakfast and out, aim for the tail end of the morning instead, closer to 10:30 or 11.

Remember: closed Tuesdays

No breakfast, lunch, or dinner on Tuesdays, period. If you're building your week around a sit-down breakfast here, skip Tuesday entirely. There's a longer explanation of why the day off works this way in this breakdown of the Tuesday closure, but the short version is staffing and prep. Plan your breakfast run for any other day of the week.

What actually slows things down

• Group size. Tables of six or more take longer to seat and longer to serve. If you're bringing a big family group, call ahead or come at the edges of the morning rather than the middle.

• Special requests. Substitutions and off-menu asks add ticket time. Sticking with what's listed keeps the kitchen moving faster for everyone.

• Local events. Anything happening in downtown Ephrata or nearby Grant County events tends to push breakfast traffic later into the morning, since people eat after they've already been out and about.

Weekday breakfast vs. weekend breakfast, side by side

• Weekday, before 8am: Fastest seating, quiet room, good for solo diners or quick coffee stops before work.

• Weekday, 8 to 9:30am: Moderate wait, mostly regulars and retirees, still manageable.

• Weekend, before 8:30am: Best weekend option if you want to avoid a wait entirely.

• Weekend, 9 to 11am: Peak crowd. Expect a wait, especially with kids' sports or events in town.

• Weekend, after 11am: Shifts toward lunch, but still a solid option if breakfast items are still being served.

If you're bringing the family

Families do best either right at opening or right before the lunch shift starts. Both windows have more open tables, which means more room for high chairs, strollers, and kids who need a minute to settle in. The middle of the morning is fine too, just know you might wait a bit longer, and that's worth factoring in if you've got a toddler who doesn't do well standing around.

One more thing worth knowing

Breakfast isn't the only reason people build their schedule around this place. A lot of the same planning logic, arrive early or arrive late to skip the rush, applies to happy hour too. If you're curious why locals treat those weekday afternoon hours as a fixture, this look at Ephrata's happy hour habits covers the same kind of timing questions from a different angle.

For the full rundown of what's actually being served in the morning, check the current breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu before you head over. Between the timing tips above and knowing what you want to order, you should be in and out of 12 Hawks without much of a wait, no matter which day you pick.