Squeaky Bean ditches breakfast and lunch to concentrate on dinner and brunch

Lori Midson

The Squeaky Bean's Max MacKissock and Johnny Ballen

Beginning today, the Squeaky Bean, the wickedly cheeky stamping ground in Highland that turns out some of the best food in the city, is cutting back its noshing hours, eliminating breakfast and lunch altogether to concentrate on brunch and dinner. "Doing three services a day is really really hard, and, frankly, we don't have any downtime, so, at least for now, we're stopping our breakfast and lunch services to focus on what we do best, which is brunch and dinner," explains Squeaky Bean head bean Johnny Ballen.

In addition, says Ballen, the opportunity for more hours in the day outside the confines of the restaurant will give him and Max MacKissock, the Bean's head chef, time to fiddle around in their garden, an ever-growing swatch of plot that sits behind the restaurant and grows much of the produce and vegetables that MacKissock uses in his kitchen. "We already have six beds, and we're getting more property to make it even bigger, which we're really stoked about," says Ballen. "We want to watch the garden grow and possibly even build a greenhouse," he adds.

And sometime in the near future -- Ballen doesn't know exactly when -- the Bean will undergo a remodel. "We're getting ready for a build-out, expansion and new kitchen, and we're ready to go full steam ahead, but we're still trying to figure out exactly when that will happen," says Ballen, adding that in the coming months, "Max's dinner menu will continue to evolve and brunch will be even more fun and zany."

In the meantime, the Bean is now open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday, 5:30 to close, and brunch on Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. For more info, call 303-284-0053.