Nine On The Line: Bisbee Breakfast Club’s Terry Kyte

Terry Kyte, owner and chef of Bisbee Breakfast Club is full of personality and humor.

While Bisbee Breakfast Club has served the town of Bisbee since 2005, it only recently debuted in Tucson in 2011. And they’re growing fast. With five locations in Arizona — one in Bisbee, three in Tucson, and one in Mesa, two of the Tucson locations opened just this year.

Bisbee Breakfast Club can be found on Ina just west of Thornydale, on Sunrise near Swan, and at Broadway Village on Broadway at Country Club.

Kyte is also the owner of Ombre Coffee, which is served at Bisbee Breakfast Club and has a store front connected to BBC’s Broadway location.

What was the first dish you had that changed your perspective on food?

I think I was maybe nine or 10 and my family was on a summer road trip of some sort. We were at Brennan’s in New Orleans and I ordered the Bananas Foster, which they flambé tableside. It was one of the best things I’d ever had and probably shook something loose in my head.

What are you eating these days?

Lots of pastries and bread. My wife has been working on pastry recipes for Ombre Coffee and it’s my job to eat them all up and scale them if I can. Also, Barrio Bread just moved in down the block from us at BBC Broadway so we’ve always got incredible fresh bread on hand. And when my kids are done eating dinner, I’ve usually got all the uneaten string cheeses and Super Mario soup I can eat in order to clear the table.

What was the first dish you remember cooking?

Potato chips with microwave melted cheddar cheese and ketchup on top as some sort of post-apocalyptic after school snack. Ugh, gross. Does that count?

What concept, ingredient or food trend does everyone seem to love, but you just can’t stomach?

Guilty pleasures. Pleasures are pleasures. Drop the guilt. Who cares? NOT ME! BEAR DOWN!

What chef, with us or passed on, would you most like to cook or eat dinner with?

Chris Kimball from America’s Test Kitchen. He seems curmudgeonly enough that we could argue pretty easily over trivial things and I like his accessible approach to cooking.

What city, other than Tucson, is your favorite place to eat?

I lived up in the Pacific Northwest for quite a while before I moved back to Tucson. Seattle and Portland are unassailable as stellar restaurant towns. I’ve had a few of those “life-altering” meals up there — at a ramen food truck in Portland I don’t know the name of and The Walrus & the Carpenter in Seattle, to name a couple. Also, in the same way I still say America’s Funniest Home Videos is my favorite TV show, my favorite restaurant in the world (outside of Tucson) is Nicholas, a great Lebanese place with a couple locations in Portland.

Speaking in junk food terms, what is your favorite guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasures rant from question 4 aside, I assume we’re talking about severely over-processed foods in general. I love Ruffles potato chips so much it hurts. One family-size bag a day isn’t going to kill me though, is it? Also, I’m very fond of the carbonated concoction called Coca-Cola. I understand it’s already pretty popular as a beverage worldwide but for good reason. Holy cow, is it ever delicious! Maybe once a month I like to have it as a special reward for a “job well done.” I can only enjoy it alone, however. And as I sit and drink it, usually while crying in my car at a stoplight, I literally cannot think of a better beverage. Ruffles & Coke! Coke & Ruffles! (Please don’t print the part about me crying in the car.)

Top three Tucson restaurants?

If we’re out and about, I like to dine at my fellow Tucson Originals restaurants, but my family usually likes to stick pretty close to home in midtown. Something I find pretty amazing is the fact that, although practically inadvisable, you can stand in the crosswalk at Broadway and Treat and hit four of Tucson’s best restaurants with a cracked frisbee: Falora, Zemams, Kimchi Time, and Rocco’s. The Sunshine Mile has become a great strip and we’re happy to have our newest location in the midst of it all.

With a figurative electric chair in your immediate future, what is your last meal?

My mother’s taco salad. She may say, “What in Sam Hill you thinking going done get your damn self electrocuted?” but I would think she’d still probably make it for me. (Please don’t print the part about my mom asking about me being electrocuted, she doesn’t sound like that at all.)