The Early Bird Cafe

Since 1993, our family has been proud to serve Plaistow and the surrounding community with the kind of food we would want on our own table.

Our restaurant was built by Bob Falwell with the help of his family, whose experience in hospitality and cooking began long before we opened our doors. Growing up in Medford and Wilmington, Massachusetts, he learned recipes from his parents and grandparents that would later become the foundation of our menu. He went on to study hospitality at Paul Smiths College in upstate New York, then transferred to get a bachelors degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bob combined those family roots with everything he picked up working across the restaurant industry, from catering to short-order cooking. His wife, Rita Falwell, was there too, both at White Mountain and from the beginning at Early Bird, helping shape the front of house and service area. Rita brought her own hospitality and food service experience from Los Angeles, Detroit, London, and Boston, where she worked both as a server and a manager. In the 1980s, they opened a small ice cream restaurant called White Mountain Ice Cream Restaurant on the Plaistow / Haverhill border. Breakfast became very popular there, but the dining room was too small to keep growing. After more years working in local restaurants, they opened our restaurant in 1993 with a simple idea: make fast, fresh, hot food that tastes great, take no shortcuts, and treat employees the way they would want to be treated.

That philosophy has never changed.

From the beginning, we believed the little things matter. If something is called an M&M pancake, it should have real M&Ms. If a customer wants pure maple syrup, it should be there as an option. Even something as simple as Smucker's jelly on the table says something about standards. We have always believed that people may not notice little details right away, but they know when a place cares. You might not notice, but your brain does! We make food we are proud to serve, using ingredients we believe in, because that is the way we would want to have it ourselves.

We also wanted to build the kind of place people could count on. A clean, comfortable restaurant where you can sit down with your family, meet a friend for breakfast, or stop in for a quick burger after work. Friendly waitstaff, generous portions, and food that fills you up and keeps you coming back. Bring the kids. They love our food, and we love having them. Many of the kids who grew up eating here now bring their own children in. Come in hungry... leave full.

Just as important as the food is the way a restaurant treats its people. We have always believed that good employees are worth keeping. In an industry known for turnover, many of our staff have been here for over 20 years, and some have been here since the day we opened. That kind of loyalty comes from respect, fair treatment, and pride in doing the job right. Many customers know their servers by name, and over the years those familiar faces have become part of what makes this place feel like Plaistow.

Over the years, generations of families have eaten here, worked here, and made us part of their routine. We are proud to support Timberlane, Sanborn, and Haverhill students whenever we can, and we are always glad to serve our local fire department, police, and the many hard-working businesses along Route 125. We have been part of this area for a long time, and we are proud to be known in Plaistow as a place people can rely on.

It has never been easy to stay independent, and the years after lockdown have been hard on small restaurants everywhere. But we still believe in what we are doing. The same standards we talked about in 1993 still guide us today: serve people well, make food you are proud of, and run a restaurant with honesty, hard work, and respect.

That was the idea when we opened, and it is still the idea today.