• The Grey Dog’s Coffee

  33 Carmine St., nr. Bleecker St.; 212-462-0041
  90 University Pl., nr. 12th St.; 212-414-4739

  It’s tough to find a restaurant that will open early, tolerate and amuse little ones, and ply parents with some high-quality caffeine. The Grey Dog’s Coffee, a pair of NYU-student hangouts–cum–friendly neighborhood cafés, manages to do all of the above. Both Village locations open at kid-ready hours: 6:30 a.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m. on weekends. They have booster seats and don’t mind if kids line up their toys along the windows (the larger University Place location is more stroller-friendly). And the food’s a little more refined than the average greasy spoon. The thin, crêpelike pancakes shaped (bemusingly, to some parents) like doggie bones instantly turn kids into flapjack addicts. Moms and dads, meanwhile, can indulge in plates of fluffy eggs and thick-cut bacon as well as bottomless cups of coffee. Owners and brothers Peter Adrian and David Ethan special-order their beans from a roaster upstate.

From the 2009 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine