Want to have a triple bypass someday? You should- Eat At Joe's.

Eat At Joe’s is a shack. I’m not saying that as a bad thing. Hey, I’ve eaten in shacks before. My favorite BBQ place in Seattle is a shack. I just want you to be prepared to go into a building that looks like a large and slightly refurbished lean-to. It’s in a structure that could not survive any form of inclement weather you’d come across in another part of the country (a wind storm or even, say, a light snowfall). That’s part of the charm of this Redondo Beach mainstay. Also part of Eat at Joe’s charm, is that in lieu of individual tables, the majority of the seating is done at long tables, ‘picnic in the park’ style. You’ll find yourself seated intimately with complete strangers at busier times. This makes sense once you find out that it’s a hamburger stand that just kept growing. Like a shoddy Winchester Mystery House, it’s addition after addition.

Another dare I say, charming, thing about Eat at Joe’s is that they weigh down the tables with just abut every condiment you may want. Soy sauce? Mustard? Check.. A-1? Check. Spicy Thai Pepper Sauce?…Maybe, I forgot to check, but probably. When you order the coffee you get a basket of different creamers. Now of course everyone wants fresh cream or milk but you have to expect that you aren’t getting that at most places. Eat At Joe’s does give you a selection of different flavored creamers. It’s like having coffee at my mom’s house- French vanilla, hazelnut, Irish cream. The coffee is served in a heavy mug. in a cruel contrast to the coffee itself which is rather weak.


If you remember the (no Eat Ats) Joe’s Diner review, you’ll remember I got the John Wayne’s Eggs- chilli on top of two eggs, on top of home fries, on top of a flour tortilla with sausage circled around it like wagons. Well, Eat At Joes’s claims to be the originator of the dish with the tale that the Duke himself came in and ordered that dish. Eat At Joe’s variation features cheese, the eggs standardized with over medium, no chilli but with a “Spanish sauce”. I thought about ordering that and comparing the two, but there’s one thing that prevented me- I am over my recent chicken salad sandwich phase, but I am now going though a biscuits and gravy phase.

I ordered the Joe’s Special. It consists of biscuits and gravy served with sausage patties, two eggs and home fries. This meal should kill you. It should just come with a gun with a note that says “Aim at Heart”. With the caloric and fat intake this meal packs I wish it was better. Now, it is good, it’s just not great. The gravy was a refreshing brownish tinge which usually means that it is real gravy made from real grease. It was a tad too greasy for my tastes but still good. The biscuits, really just one biscuit halved, is soft but a tad small. The sausage patties were what they were, I’m not crazy about patties, I prefer links. The eggs I ordered over easy, came out perfectly. The home fries were the right amount of greasy and had just the right amount of seasoning.



My dining companion, Shannon, ordered the Hangover “Omelette” (their spelling, not mine). I guess the idea of this is that it’s the breakfast you try to make when you have a hangover and halfway through you screw it up and just say the hell with it. This isn’t an omelet, it’s a scramble with hamburger, onions, mozzarella, ortega chiles, and tomato. Normally the ensenada sauce is served on top but Shannon wisely ordered it on the side. It proved to be too spicy.




They do indeed have pie. I didn’t order any due to the large amount of sausage fat coursing through my body at the time. I don’t imagine the pie would be something special but you never know. They do also offer slices of cake, if you are one of those people.

Now two things I haven’t covered- the service and the menu. The menu has a wide variety of offerings. They have a healthy section with things like the Gobbler Scramble (ground turkey with egg whites served with brown rice). They also have night dinner specials. Wednesday it was Yankee Pot Roast, which nearly won out over the Biscuits and Gravy and/or the John Wayne. The service was kind of shoddy. I had to ask for several of my refills. I think this was more atypical. Our waiter didn’t seem like he was always the waiter. It seemed like he had another job there but was handling tables because it was close to closing.

They are pretty boastful on their sign though.

It could be true for all I know.

For the health conscious-



Price: $6-$15
Food: Good.
Service: Lacking.
Pie: Yes

400 North Pacific Coast HWY.
Redondo Beach CA
310 376 9570

Joe's Diner- Dirty sounding dessert!

Having to take an unexpected trip out to Santa Monica on this past Monday led me to quickly search out a diner to review. Why squander a trip outside my usual neighborhood when there are diners aplenty to seek out? A quick google search later, I found Joe’s Diner. How about that! It actually has ‘diner’ in the name. That might be a first for the diner blog.

On this trip, I took along my friend Greg who is visiting from Washington state. He's a clown who does birthday parties and burlesque shows... I hate his life because I covet it. Anyway...

Joe’s Diner is located in the middle of an old storefront block in Santa Monica that has been thoroughly gentrified. It is nestled between a sushi restaurant and trendy clothing boutique. We entered Joe’s through a rickety screen door and took a booth right inside. I noticed something immediately that makes me have to disagree with Joe’s website- "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place". The lighting was down low to near-romantic levels, this, as well as the soft music playing, gave the diner an out of place “date” atmosphere. The dining area itself reminded me of an old apartment I once had. A fresh coat of white paint and a mopped floor but it still looked dirty. Please don’t think that this is a place with cockroaches on the floor or rats using butter pats to skate on the griddle, that’s not it at all. Sometimes old buildings are just always old. And old equals dirty.

Our waitress hit us up quickly for drinks. We both got the coffee. She apologized for being a bit frazzled, apparently that soft music we were listening to had been the same soft music playing in the restaurant for some time. The cd player had been stuck on repeat and “High Life” was starting to drive her bonkers. She left us menus and retreated to the back to try to fix the problem. After a moment she returned with our coffees and the new Amy Winehouse started to play. The coffee had a smoky flavor, it reminded me of a bonfire at the beach for some reason. I’m ashamed to say that it wasn’t until later that I realized that that meant the coffee was probably burnt.

Gazing over the menu we noticed a vegetarian section which should please a lot of folks. This and the fact that they had an item called “Zone Diet Salad”, lead me to conclude that this place was a nouveau diner with way too much avocado and healthy alternatives. This conclusion was blasted away when I saw the “John Wayne’s Eggs”. This was a MEAL, a man’s meal, a “don’t call during Ninja Master on G4” meal. Chilli on top of two eggs, on top of home fries, on top of a flour tortilla with sausage-Like I said, “a man’s meal.” I imagined this would be similar to the Devil’s Mess I got at Millie’s. Greg was willing to take one for the team and let me order for him. That way I could get a closer look at another item. The Santa Fe Melt sounded like a good choice- Jack cheese, turkey, green peppers, tomato and avocado served on sourdough bread.

My confidence in our food was bolstered when I noticed it would be an aged man in a paper hat preparing our meals. C'mon, a paper hat!

We inquired about desserts. I saw that they had apple pie as the sole representative from the Pie food group. Greg asked about a massive ice cream dish that was described as having 10 scoops of ice cream. Our waitress admitted she was completely unfamiliar with the desserts. I asked if she knew if the pie was made in house. She said it was made somewhere else but baked at the diner. Greg then ordered the second most pornographic sounding dessert I have heard of-the first being the fudgeanna at Frankie Doodle’s in Spokane Washington- Greg ordered a Frosty Brown Cow with a Vanilla Sidecar. Our waitress also admitted she had no idea what that was. We broke it down and figured it was a blended root beer float served with a glass of vanilla syrup and soda water. We adjourned our dessert conference and she went off.

After only a short wait, she brought out our meals.
Greg commented that it was refreshing that the turkey had been heated all the way through. Normally a hot sandwich (one not served open face of course) suffers from the fact that most places heat the sandwich all at once on the grill or toaster or (heaven help us) the microwave. This usually means the core of the sandwich doesn’t get as hot as the rest of the sandwich. Joe’s had clearly heated the meat separately guaranteeing a even temperature throughout. The fries, which were surprisingly curly, were good. Not crunchy but not soggy either. The pickle still retained some semblance of a cucumber flavor.

The John Wayne’s Eggs did not disappoint. The chilli, worked great with the eggs and the eggs worked great with the home fries. Originally I dismissed the inclusion of the tortilla at the bottom, but found that it helped mop up the leftovers from the top layers. The sausages were basic breakfast links, more crispy than you usually get but really plain. This was such a man’s meal I, a man, couldn’t even finish it all.

We did have to remind our waitress of the desserts after we were done with our meals. She quickly brought out the pie and left to get retrieve Greg's ensemble. The pie was straight-up good apple pie. A nice flaky top and a strong cinnamon taste to the apples that I enjoyed. She returned with the three glasses that made up Greg’s dessert. One for the frosted brown cow, one metal cup from the milkshake machine, and one glass with the vanilla sidecar. After some deliberation we decided that sipping through two straws, both the brown cow and the sidecar, was the most reasonable and delicious way to drink it.



We left Joe’s with full tummies and some leftovers. Definitely check it out.

Price: $10-14 for most entrees
Food: Tasty.
Service: Personable but not necessarily on-the-ball.
Atmosphere: Old.
Pie: Apple and definitely good.
2917 Main St, Santa Monica - (310) 392-5804

UPDATE: Joe's has changed. It has become more trendy and added a wine menu. I drove past it and didn't even recognize it. It has a totally different feel now.