Tremendous change has occurred since 1963, the year Ed Baker opened his first of seven East Bay egg breakfast spots, including the Montclair Egg Shop launched in 1974 and celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Two things have stayed the same, though, through the decades for the soon-to-be 90-year-old restaurateur: Baker doesn’t care for coffee or cigarettes.
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“I favor the pomegranate juice since they no longer sell my hot spicy cider. I’ve never had hot coffee. It’s a copycat beverage and causes the world to turn. It might have good qualities, but it’s caffeine and jacks you up. It’s not natural,” he said in a recent interview. “And although I had ashtrays on the tables, I didn’t sell cigarettes. I knew that smoking turns your head into a chimney. I was ahead of my time.”
If he was ahead of the curve, it paid off in also understanding and enacting the old trope that “the customer is always right.” Upon opening his first egg shop in Oakland (called The Egg Shop and Apple Press), Baker conceded to a friend’s advice and customer demand and included hot coffee on the menu. At the Montclair location, Peet’s coffee and a variety of espresso drinks continue to reign, along with longtime staples such as Baker’s favorite dish, Ed’s Welsh Scramble.
“It has mushrooms, spinach, bell peppers, onions, cheddar cheese. I’ll occasionally order it with potato pancakes. If I go with a friend, I’ll split the Belgian waffles. At home, I eat mostly fresh, raw foods — organic, simple things. During World War II, everyone had victory gardens, and it was all organic, although no one talked about ‘organic’ back then.”
What he says he rarely ate “back then” were eggs.
“My introduction to eggs was hit-and-miss, because my mother was more into gardening. They were runny and not tasty,” he recalls.
Baker graduated from Piedmont High School in 1952 and, upon enrolling for his first year of college at San Francisco State University, began commuting on his motorcycle from the family home in Oakland across the Bay Bridge.
“My mother thought I was going to kill myself on that bike, so she had my father pull his signature and I lost my license. I decided as the youngest of four kids it was time for the baby to leave the nest and signed up for the Air Force. It was the best decision I ever made.”
Baker says he was a medic from 1953 to 1957 and never touched eggs during his years of service. Upon leaving the military, he tried acting in summer stock theater in New York but eventually decided to return to California.
“On the way back I started thinking about how I’d build my body up and about eggs and ‘What if I put them in a blender to beat them so they weren’t runny?’ I served some omelets to friends, and they said they were good and I should open a shop.
“I opened the first one on 17th Street in Oakland and then No. 2 on Shattuck and then others. Montclair was fifth, and that blender was the seed that made it all happen.”
He says growing the seed in Montclair Village “took some doing.” In 1973, he needed ice cream, which he typically bought in Berkeley but had to come one week to a store in Montclair to buy. Told he’d have to wait an hour for his order to be prepared, he walked around.
“There was a lovely store called Up to Shaw, and I went back and asked the ice cream shop owner if he thought the owner would ever sell the building. He said ‘no,’ but a year later he called and said it was up for sale.
“He’d offered $1,000 for six months to see if he could rent it, but the owner said she didn’t want to do that. I got her phone number, called and spoke to her husband. He said they were going to list if for $65,000. I had “$10,000.”
Baker sought a loan from a nearby bank but was turned down and says he remembers being told that “Montclair doesn’t need another restaurant.” He said he offered to use his Oakland home as collateral, ultimately convincing the bank’s loan officer.
Even at the peak of owning and operating seven egg shops, Baker says he kept scrambling and seeking new ways to satisfy customers. The Montclair menu expanded to include Mexican options such as huevos rancheros, breakfast tacos and chilaquiles and, along with a greater variety of egg dishes, rotating specials, crepes, sandwiches, salads, beer, wine, Bloody Marys and more.
“One of the best feelings in life comes from feeding other people. When I went into that shop in Montclair, people came in hungry. I gave them a bandage to cure the pain, and it was beautiful.”
By the year 2000, Baker had sold all of his other breakfast spots except for the Montclair Egg Shop.
“When I opened it, I always said I’d retire completely in the year 2000. When that day came, I wrote a poetic note that said, ‘The Montclair Egg Shop is for sale, and that’s no yolk.’
“A man came in and tried to low-ball me with an offer. I went to Miguel Barron, my manager at that time who’d started working for me as dishwasher at age 17. Told him I’d sell it to him on an installment plan.”
Barron was 31 years old, knew the shop’s business inside-out and had learned from watching others’ mistakes and triumphs. Baker says his successor “runs a fine shop” and is excited to cut the cake at the open-to-all birthday party the shop plans to hold on Tuesday next week. Baker’s actual birthday is April 19, but the shop is celebrating 10 days earlier, on the 50th anniversary of the shop’s opening date in 1974.
“I plan to live to 100,” he says, “and I’m determined, so we can do another party in 10 years.”
The Montclair Egg Shop is holding special events on the ninth day of each month in 2024, along with giving away limited-edition anniversary T-shirts. For more information, visit montclaireggshop.com online.
Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.