Bloom Cafe & Listening Room

Alex served us breakfast today. She had excellent recommendations. My daughter had the grilled cheese with fruit, my husband the breakfast bowl , and I had the Bible BELT (bacon, egg, lettuce, tomato) This is an instagrammable location and so much better than going through a drive through. Expect delicious from scratch food! You won't be disappointed.

We ate here when passing through staying overnight on a roadtrip, we came for both dinner and breakfast. More than half of the dinner menu is gluten free. Cocktails are interesting and yummy. Elote dip was more like a corn salad served with chips. Not at all spicy, pretty tasty. Our party tried the braised beef, the pork belly lettuce wraps, the sweet potato gnocchi (not gf) and the ramen (which did have a gluten-free option!). Everything was amazing.The entire dessert menu was gluten free. For breakfast they had a gf quiche that was to die for. My gf 7yo had a hard time finding anything she wanted (no gf pancakes or waffles unfortunately) but we ultimately found her a gf housemade poptart-like pastry that was incredible. I would pay good money for their pastry recipe... Restaurant is small but they seem to be moving into a larger location. Service was a little slow but very friendly and competent. Gluten-free options were very well marked as a server was easily able to get gluten-free information. Gluten free items were able to be served as advertised with no adjustments.

UNFORTUNATE: Our experience was quite the let down. We are accustomed to cuisine in Charleston and Dallas, so when we chose Bloom for brunch, we were excited. We were thrilled to visit a place that was Women-Led in this area. Their online presence convinced us we found something in the Tri Cities that was reminiscent of home. That was not the case. We arrived at 9:30 am on a Sunday and walked into one of the most beautiful and thought out spaces we’ve seen in the Tri Cities and our excitement built. Sadly, that is where our excitement ended. The hostess greeted us and told us there was a wait. This is to be expected and did not slow us down one bit. But we asked how long so that we could know an estimate of how much time we had to visit some other stores while we waited. She looked at us like we were crazy, eventually telling us there were two groups ahead of us. We wandered for thirty minutes (only to find that everything is bizarrely closed on Sunday in Bristol) and returned to sit in the air conditioned waiting area at Bloom. We watched a table get cleared and sanitized, and as people who eat out for every meal, anticipated a text soon that our table was ready. Then we see another table cleared and sanitized, patiently waiting on the lovely mid century modern couch by the kitchen. Five more minutes pass. Finally, the notification that our table is ready. We are seated at the first table we saw cleared. The waitress came by with waters (think whiskey glass sized, but more narrow). She handed us menus and told us what wasn’t available today. Sweet. She returns to refill our water and over pours one, creating a pool of water on the table the size of a small plate. She returns not to clean up the water but to place four rolls of silverware directly in the middle of the puddle. I immediately snatch them away and ask her for some napkins to dry up the puddle. She returns to throw down some cocktail napkins and walk away. We finally order. Food comes out relatively promptly, and it was so very amazingly adequate. You could see there was SO MUCH PROMISE in each dish, but nonetheless, only promise. One example being the breakfast sandwich. You can barely tell there is bacon, egg, or cheese on this thing. But you take a bite and wonder how many sticks of butter are devoted to one croissant. All in all, good enough to satisfy what had become a burning hunger. That’s it. No more. No less. The prices were exceptionally low. “You get what you pay for” rings true once again.

Bloom is a hip coffee bar & restaurant on the Main Street of Bristol. The female owner has created a warm & welcoming oasis for LGBT & other members of the community who might not feel at home in this Republican-leaning town in the current hyper-partisan political environment. Based on the recommendation of my friendly wait-person, I ordered the steak entree for dinner. The steak was generously portioned, tender, nicely seasoned, medium well-done, & with a fantastic blue cheese butter sauce. The green beans, maitake mushrooms, & mash potato complemented the steak very well. This dish rivals those served in high end restaurants in a large city or suburb. I finished my meal with a rich & satisfying chai Crème brûlée. I highly recommend this unique restaurant & would come back again on my next visit to Bristol.

I had the biscuit with sausage gravy and 2 fried eggs. Gravy is loaded with sausage and was very good. I didn't care for the biscuit as it seemed to have a grainy texture. Eggs were as ordered and service was excellent. Coffee was really good. I just had the house coffee, nothing fancy. The restaurant itself was just loud. Maybe just the acoustics of an old building but it was hard to hear my friend. Reservations definitely recommended.

Highly recommend this marvelous find. We felt like royalty when we arrived since we had a reservation. Everyone was very friendly starting with Jen B who held the door open for everyone. She was also our waitress. Friendly, helpful and knowledgable. The food was amazing. I had the goat cheese and egg sandwich on a croissant with bacon. By husband had the egg bowl. The flavors on both were complex and melded well together. The coffee was full of body and a great way to start the day. The service was fast and friendly. Can’t wait to come back the next time I am in town.