San Marino Grill Coffee Shop

We had been wanting to try this place for a long time. It looked so cute and old-fashioned on the outside.

The inside was just as cute and old-fashioned and really cozy. We immediately felt at home.

I'm pretty sure the old guy on the right was famous but I'm not sure. I kept thinking Pat Boone, but it's not him.

The menu is very simple. It's just this one page and few specials written on the board above the counter.

We started with some coffee and boy was it bad--like brown hot water bad. It did not improve with subsequent cups.



Antoinette ordered the pumpkin oatmeal and a side of bacon and sausage for some protein. The sausage was a little under-cooked but it tasted pretty good and I didn't get sick so that was good. The pumpkin oatmeal needed more pumpkin.

I got the crunchy strawberry french toast which was decent, if a little bland. There was some strawberry jam as a topping but I think I would have actually preferred real syrup. (I thought that but when we went back again a few weeks later I got pancakes and the syrup was nearly tasteless.)

We then looked around and saw that other than us, the place was populated by a decidedly older clientele. Older folks tend to prefer blander food and I think San Marino Grill and Coffee Shop knew on what side their bread was buttered.

Like I mentioned above, we gave it another chance a few weeks later. Bland but oh-so cozy. If the place had good coffee I'd recommend going just to sit peacefully for a bit. But it doesn't, so I can't.

Food: Bland.

Price: $6-10

Service: Nice.

Pie: It's on the menu, but I suspect store-bought.

San Marino Grill Coffee Shop

2494 Huntington Dr
San Marino, CA 91108

Colonial Kitchen--Kitsch-en

Going to the Colonial Kitchen in San Marino was just like visiting my grandmother's house. Well, not my grandmother's house, because mine is a crazy hoarder. It was more like visiting your grandmother's house.

There are glass display cases with ceramic figurines and a grandfather clock...



useless books laying about...



a gift shop selling necklaces and...stuff...



a hidden away Elvis dining room...

And this... hanging on the wall. Just like your grandma's house.

It's clear to see that Colonial Kitchen is a bit of a design mystery. It's folksy and homey and loves Elvis and has weird stuff everywhere. The overstuffed booths are covered in green leathery upholstery that reminds me more of an Italian restaurant than a diner. The low mood lighting and fixtures do the same.



#1Diner Companion Antoinette and I met up with our friends Lidia and Josh for breakfast one morning. We arrived around ten and had to wait just a minute for a table. Sadly, they were not seating in the Elvis room at this time. I think it's just for special occasions.

The menu had an odd habit of placing quotation marks on parts of the titles of the dishes. For example, the menu listed "The 'Reuben' sandwich" which was right next to "The Hot Beef" sandwich.



Antoinette ordered a turkey sandwich with a side of potato salad. The sandwich was good. It was very thick and didn't skimp on the meat. The potato salad was odd. It was all potato and mayonnaise. No egg at all. It didn't taste bad, it just tasted weird. I actually HATE potato salad with too much of an egg taste, but this was just wrong.

Lidia and Josh split the Belgian Waffle breakfast. It was pretty standard. The bacon stood out as being pretty good.

I ordered the Louisiana omelet. Much like my 1961 cookbook "What Cooks in Suburbia" has a recipe for a sweet and sour sauce which is basically ketchup and more sugar, Colonial Kitchen thinks "Louisiana" is just a place holder for "spicy." The omelet was good, mind you, it just had very little to do with Louisiana. Oddly, it was served with salsa and green chiles, y'know, staples of the southern diet, with a slice of Swiss cheese over the egg. The sausage inside the omelet was at least an actual hot link, so the name wasn't a total misnomer.

The hash browns were really disappointing. They were chewy and lumpy. Apparently, this is a style of hash browns known as "Cafeteria." This comes from cooking a lot of potatoes all at once and then keeping them warm for an extended period time. The starch from the potatoes gets all sticky and gross over time.

Colonial Kitchen is a little disappointing in the food department. In the "WTF" department, it gets a solid 'A.' I can't really give it positive recommendation though. It's fun to go there for the kitsch and the possibility of dining in the Elvis room, but otherwise it is an easy skip.

Food: Okay.
Service: Okay.
Price: $6.95-$9.95
Pie: Yes.

Colonial Kitchen
1110 Huntington Dr
San Marino, CA 91108

(626) 289-2449