Big Bad Breakfast is the all-day breakfast restaurant that John Currence opened a few blocks north of the Square in 2008 — and which has since grown into a small Southern chain. The Oxford original is still the best of them. The menu is intentionally over-the-top Southern: hand-cut bacon (cured on site), thick biscuits with redeye gravy, eggs from a Mississippi farm, hot pepper jam.
The dining room is large and noisy and the queue on a Saturday morning is real but moves quickly. Order the Pylon — eggs, bacon, sausage, and a sweet potato pancake — at least once. Coffee comes from a local roaster and is not the bottomless American diner kind; ask for a refill and they will bring it cheerfully.