I am a breakfast junkie. I love breakfast for lunch, breakfast for dinner and breakfast for breakfast. I agonize over the choices: eggs, bacon, sausage? Or the mouthwatering sweets &mdash; French toast, pancakes slathered in melting butter and warm maple syrup. It&rsquo;s one agony I&rsquo;m happy to shoulder.</p><p>But this breakfast-for-luncher can&rsquo;t always find her meal of choice during the week, which is why I was thrilled to unearth a Haltom City restaurant called Rise & Dine. It serves breakfast <em>and </em>lunch, but you can get breakfast until it closes at 2:30 p.m. It&rsquo;s a small franchise, with 14 locations in four states &mdash; including the Haltom City spot, and another in North Richland Hills.</p><p>(Don&rsquo;t get used to the name Rise & Dine: At the same time the restaurant is expanding &mdash; with a Fort Worth location in the works &mdash; it&rsquo;s also rebranding itself as the more generic Sunny Street Cafe.)</p><p>Let&rsquo;s break down our recent visit.</p><p><strong>Breaking some eggs: </strong>My companion loved the idea of building his own omelet from a smorgasbord of toppings, so he settled on one with bacon, jalape&ntilde;os and feta cheese ($7.49). The result was decent enough, if a bit skimpy on the feta (an oddity, considering omelets are usually unapologetic oozers of cheese). He says he&rsquo;d try one again, though, but maybe with another cheese. The omelet also came with unremarkable sourdough toast but terrific home fries &mdash; not the variety that come oil-slathered and threaded with onion and peppers, but the anti-onion version: crispy and seasoned on the outside, soft inside. His take: dee-lish.</p><p>I opted for the Hearty Breakfast ($7.99), which came with two basic but perfectly cooked scrambled eggs and bacon. I ordered my bacon extra-crispy, but the thick, smoky strips came out a little on the floppy side. Also on the side: a generous portion of crispy hash browns, which reminded me (happily) of what I&rsquo;ve consumed by the plateful at IHOP. And speaking of pancakes, this came with buttermilk pancakes, which we&rsquo;ll get to in a minute.</p><p><strong>A sweet revelation:</strong> French toast verges on dessert territory anyway, but the Rise & Dine One-of-a-Kind French Toast (full order $5.99; half order $3.99) was a full-throttle assault of sweetsy goodness. Coated in fresh granola, coconut and brown sugar and baked to crunchy perfection, it made us wanna smack our mama.</p><p><strong>Biggest disappointment:</strong> Our Hearty Breakfast came with two regular buttermilk pancakes, but for a 79-cent charge, we upgraded to the peach almond pancakes ($4.99 on their own). The drool-worthy vision danced in our head: crunchy almond slivers and fresh peaches in the batter. No such luck. A delectable, massive Frisbee of a pancake was disappointingly topped with a pile of diced canned peaches and a sprawl of almond slivers. Next time, we&rsquo;ll take our buttermilks straight. </p><p><strong>Grits worth kissing?</strong> The grits ($1.99) were unlike any we&rsquo;ve tried before, and we&rsquo;re not sure that&rsquo;s a compliment. They had been seasoned with peppery sausage gravy, making them simultaneously decadent and gummy. We applaud the idea of trying to take two luscious things and marry them into one beautiful bowl of cardiac arrest. But we think they&rsquo;re both better off single.</p><p>So while Rise & Dine might not be the most inspired breakfast food you&rsquo;ll find, it does the basics well, and it&rsquo;s a reasonable alternative to the similarly priced IHOP. And the French toast? It&rsquo;s in our future lunch plans. </p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> Rise & Dine Restaurant 5000 Western Center Blvd., Suite 370, Haltom City</p><p>817-428-9797; <a href="http://www.risedine.com">www.risedine.com</a></p><p></div>