Le Roy's, The Original--3 Year Anniversary poll winner!

Last month, in preparation for the third anniversary of Dinerwood, I put up a poll asking where I should go. Le Roy's The Original in Monrovia won (runner-up Pacific Diner will get done next month).

I am not often in Monrovia, but every time I am, I end up on Huntington Drive driving past Le Roy's Original. I had never seen it open and assumed it was closed down. I also assumed it was called King Le Roy's for no better reason than it has a lion wearing a crown on the sign.

I was overjoyed when I found out that it wasn't that they were closed down, it's just that they close at 3pm everyday. Apparently I am only ever in Monrovia in late afternoon or evening. Monrovia has an exciting nightlife, if you didn't know.

This morning, bright and early at 7:30 am, I met my friend, legitimate journalist David Allen. In complete contrast with the very first review three years ago, where I walked into Millie's also at 7:30 am and there was no one else there, Le Roy's was hopping.

Le Roy's is by no means tiny, but it doesn't have an abundance of tables. They require that everyone in your party be present before seating you. David was a few minutes late so I got to soak in some of the atmosphere. There's a short counter with about a dozen seats. Each was occupied by a man no younger than 60. More often than not, they were referred to by first name and/or didn't need to look at a menu before ordering.

The waitresses were the kind of waitresses you always want to have; I was called "sweetie" and "hon'" at least twice. They were attentive and friendly, and they were also relatively "with-it." One waitress told her elderly patron that he should go to Youtube and watch the video of the cat flushing the toilet. "It's the funniest thing," she insisted.

So two failures in the realm of photography that occurred during this visit were that I didn't get a good shot of the butterflies that adorn the ceiling and no picture of the etched lions on the glass in the background. The butterflies area bit of head-scratcher unless this is their "spring time" decoration. The lions (same mascot as on the sign) are pretty amazingly detailed in the glass.

Once David and I were seated, we looked over the menu. Even though Le Roy's is only doing breakfast and lunch, the menu was very concise. For breakfast, you basically had a few omelets, the pancake-french toast- waffle triumvirate, and eggs with a pig part. For lunch you had some basic sandwiches.

I asked our waitress what she recommended. She specifically said "Well, these are popular" (which is not exactly what I asked, but all right.) and then proceeded to point out the ham and eggs, the corned beef hash and eggs, and the pancakes.

After some negotiation between us, David ordered the corned beef hash and I ordered the pancake breakfast special. This way we got to sample a a wider variety of what Le Roy's had to offer, at least from the breakfast menu. I also ordered a side of the cottage fries and David ordered the tater-tots.

I get why people are REALLY excited for tater-tots. There are not a lot of restaurants that serve tater-tots, but Le Roy's does. It's pure lunchroom nostalgia. At every table this morning, at least one person ordered them for their potato side. I was more intrigued by the cottage fries, but David was definitely into the idea of the tots.

I also ordered a coffee and let me just say--this was the best coffee I've had in a very long time. It was strong, smooth and not at all bitter. I drank at least five cups while we were there. A waitress was always there each time I finished.

After a slightly longer time that I would have expected, our food arrived.

David's was a little disappointing. I've had worse corned beef hash but I've had way better as well. The tater-tots were as good as tater-tots get, but since I suspect all tater-tots are made in one central processing center in Idaho, I don't imagine there's much variance in flavor.

I fared a bit better. My pancakes were made with a bit of Cream of Wheat mixed into the batter. Usually this is mentioned on a menu as a sub-category of the Pancakes section, like a place might have buttermilk, whole-wheat, and Cream of Wheat. It's interesting that this is their default. It was very soft and tasty. The bacon was crispy but not brittle. The cottage fries were just like big ovoid french fries; they were decent.

The service and the coffee were outstanding at Le Roy's. The food was a bit of a mixed bag. I fully intend to go back since it's quaint places like this which really make doing Dinerwood fun.

Food: More Good than Meh.

Service: Excellent.

Price: $5.00-$9.00

Pie: No pie.

Le Roy's The Original

523 W. Huntington Drive

Monrovia, CA

626-357-5076

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

Harry's Family Restaurant- No clever title

It’s Valley week in Dinerwood. I will finally review Harry’s Family Restaurant in Burbank. This review should have been written a long time ago closer to the date I actually went. I just found my notes again and the pictures have been sitting on my hard drive at work for weeks now. Now is the time.

This is a place I had seen dozens of times since I moved to LA. I would always think "I need to go there" but I just never did. Maybe something shiny distracted me. Maybe it was the lure of the Asian Seafood Buffett just down the street. Maybe it was having just had or just about to have to manuever through the scores of people wandering out of IKEA, which is just down the street. No one wants to eat after experiencing that throng.



This review will focus on my second time coming to Harry’s. My first time, I came in on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The place was quiet, coming off a lunch rush. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich. I was going through a chicken salad phase, don’t ask me why. Harry’s chicken salad was okay. The chicken wasn’t very flavorful but it wasn’t bad. I was thrown by the large piece of iceberg lettuce on the sandwich. I LIKE iceberg lettuce. It’s crunchy! I had just never had a chicken salad sandwich crunch before. I couldn't help but imagine crunching chicken bones with each bite. Sorry no pictures.

A few weeks later, I went in the morning for breakfast with my friend Shannon. At 10am the place was hopping. We apparently got the last booth as parties began to bunch up at the front after us. Harry’s is a lovely throw back the 70s in a seeming more authentic way than the 101 Coffeeshop; rock walls and gorgeous groovy turquoise covers on the booths. Where the 101 seems more like a conscious decision, Harry's seems more like a "Why would we change it?"


The menu is extensive since it’s going for more than just ‘diner’ and braches off into full restaurant. Really though, who orders the salmon at a place like this? The wide variety means that prices can range from as little as 5 dollars all the way up to 20. I ordered the Waffle and Two Egg breakfast. Shannon ordered the French Toast breakfast. I got the coffee and she got the hot chocolate.





The coffee was a little weak but our waitress was always there for a quick refill. The hot chocolate came with a mountain of whipped cream. Our food came out quickly, which was unexpected since, like I said, the place was packed. I had ordered my eggs over-easy, one yolk was runny and the other cooked solid. The sausage was a tad greasy but better than average. The waffle was very disappointing. It was like a giant Eggo waffle, soggy and not at all what I was hoping for. The chunk of orange was good. It peeled nicely and was juicy. I reviewed an orange! The French toast was “better than home” and the eggs were fine, according to Shannon. I do not recall what she thought of her orange.



The one thing I will gush about at Harry’s were the potatoes. I loved these potatoes. Similar to what I just got at Sitton’s, these were fried just a bit longer to give them some real crunch (as you will remember, I like crunchy) on the tops and the bottoms. They were perfectly buttered and salted.

I did order the pie… but sadly….I forgot to note what kind of pie and have since lost the picture to the internet ether. In my notes I just wrote “Pie- supermarket.” Not a ringing endorsement. The day I ordered the chicken salad sandwich, I also got the peach pie, and that I remember liking. It wasn’t spectacular but it was good.

Price: $5-$20
Food: Middling
Service: Good
Pie: Yes.

920 N San Fernando Blvd
Burbank, CA
91504-4325
Phone: (818) 842-8755

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.

Spy in the House of Pies

Let me say one thing first- I love House of Pies. This is my favorite establishment in all of Los Angeles. I dare say my favorite establishment since the establishment of democracy in Greece. Let me say a second thing second- I do not go to House of Pies for the food. I go for the pie.
The food at House of Pies can be good, don’t get me wrong. It can also be awful. It can be a great patty melt with delicious crispy french fries. It can also be a hair fried into a Monte Cristo sandwich. I’ve had breakfast lunch and dinner, morning, noon and night and you never know exactly how it’s going to be.

These are the things you can always count on at House of Pies-
Coffee. This coffee comes from God’s own South America. It’s always good. Strong and never burnt. The staff is always there to fill your cup. If I lived closer to the House of Pies, I would come in everyday just for the coffee.
Pie. The best pie this side of the Hollywood sign to be sure and possibly the whole state. I've never had a disappointing slice of pie here. The fruit pies are heavenly. The cream pies are devilishly good. They recently added a peanut butter cream pie that is so wonderful I often wish I could abandon my human form and become a slice of it. Why would I do this? Sounds strange doesn’t it? The reason- I know that I could never bring as much joy to another person as I’d give if I were that pie. That’s how fucking good this pie is.

These are things you might experience when you go to House of Pies-
Service of various quality. Your service at the House of Pies depends entirely on your waitress. This isn’t like the 101 Coffeshop where you can count on bad service because that’s how they do it. At House of Pies I’ve had good service and I’ve had lacking service. I hesitate to use ‘bad" to describe it. I’ve had times where getting the check was an ordeal. It tends to be very consistent with specific waitresses. There’s the older lady with the bum leg who is great up until its time to get the check or order another slice of pie (Yes, I said ANOTHER slice of pie). There’s the obese woman who reminds me of an unhealthy version of my mom who is sweet and never forgets about you. There’s the young Latina with the tight curls pulled back in a severe ponytail who always seems just two steps behind.

Closed for health code violations. A few months ago it was unexpectedly closed for a few days. If that isn’t hardcore diner eating I don’t know what is.
And finally, Captain Pimp. He is an elderly black man with a sweet leather jacket with small chains hanging off it and a captain’s hat and large sunglasses.

This particular morning I sat at the counter. I don’t do that but today was a day for counter service I believe. I was there early enough for the Early Bird special. These are meals for old people. Usually an egg, an english muffin, plain omelet, etc. Light stuff and cheap at under five dollars. I got the diced ham and egg and english muffin. The eggs were a little slimy as usual but certainly edible and enjoyable.




When it came for pie, I had to figure out what kind of mood I was in. Fruit of cream? I’m most often squarely in the cream pie camp. I thought about a chocolate cream pie, which I had not had in some time. The pull of the peanut butter cream was too much and I had to have it.


They serve the peanut butter cream pie with two pecans on top. Why? No clue. Am I curious enough to ask? Nope. This is an incredibly rich pie. The peanut butter flavor might be too much for some but those people are weak so disregard them. If you are one, I have disregarded you. The crusts on the cream pies are crumbly, not flaky. This is how I prefer my pie crusts. Without a tall glass of milk I just can’t do a flaky crust. I have been known to leave the crust uneaten if that’s the case.

Two interesting things from this particular time at House of Pies- An old man put pepper on his cottage cheese. I had never seen that before. I'm sure that man was CRAZY.
A woman sent back her chicken fried steak because she ordered it well done. Which is completely her prerogative, however she also thought her chicken-fried steak was actually chicken, so there you go.


UPDATE: 7-15-2010


I went to House of Pies with my friend Skylar last night. I had not been there in a couple of months and I recieved quite a shock.

What the hell was this? They completely redid the counter. They added two flat-screen tvs and lights and silver. It looks incredibly out of place and bizarre. I can't tell if this is just an odd design choice or if this is the first step in a slow conversion of House of Pies into Ten-Forward from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The pie was as good as ever. We had the fresh peach and the german chocolate cream pie. The peach was amazing. It had thin slices of fresh layered peaches and was naturally sweet. I always forget that the cream pies they serve you are basically a fourth of a pie. It was rich and I only ate about 3/4 of it.

I am starting to dislike the whipped cream tops on the cream pies though. It's too dense and I often find myself scraping most of it off to get to the good stuff beneath it.

Price: $6-14 for most entrees
Food: Hey, it's your call dude.
Service: You take the good, you take the bad.
Pie: Well, yeah!


1869 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles in the Los Feliz - Silverlake District
(323) 666-9961

Diner 101- Never Run Out of Hashbrowns

Going to 101 is like stumbling into a limbo (which according to Popezenberger no longer exists) - nearly everyone inside is of this modern era but the place itself is captured by the year 1977. Part of this is an artificial put-on of 70s nostalgia. For example, the walls are decorated with framed personal photographs from the time. Lots of large Chevy pick-ups and kids with messy hair. The other part has genuine trappings of 70s décor. A wall is made up of exposed rock, the floor looks like the Formica in my great aunt’s old kitchen and amazingly wonderful globe light fixtures hang above the booths. (You will soon learn I have a thing for globe lighting fixtures.) It also harkens back to the day when diners were attached to other businesses. Usually they would sort of fit the locale, bus stations and bowling alleys for example. Growing up, my local Kmart had a diner in the back with magical looking jello parfaits in a glass case. The 101 Coffee shop is in a Best Western hotel, this leads to an often eclectic mix of hipsters, burgeoning rock stars and people who actually remember the 70s- and are in their 70s.

I went in on an overcast Sunday afternoon. This would be after the church rush and before the dinner boom, so I expected to find it near empty. To my surprise, it was busy and I had to settle for a small table. No booth with totally awesome hanging globe light for me. I ordered coffee which came promptly. Silverware proved elusive for a time. The coffee itself was hard to gauge. I added some creamer and a splenda packet but was unable to mix it short of taking matters into my own hands, or rather finger. After the spoon arrived, I can say they have perfectly adequate coffee. Not too bad and not noteworthy- despite the fact that I just made note of it.

Looking over the menu, it breaks down into three categories: breakfast fare (served all day) sandwiches (tend to be on the frou frou side) and pastas. It was too far from morning for me to be craving breakfast and I’m never in the mood for pasta. I perused the sandwiches for awhile. I couldn’t resist the pull of the fried egg sandwich. My dad used to have me make him these. Mom would usually make dinner but when she was working late, dad, sister or I would pony up and do it. When it was my turn to cook, pancakes and eggs were always on the menu. My dad liked his fried egg sandwiches a certain way, so to me that way is the only legit way to do it. Toasted bread, buttered and the egg fried all the way through with a thin slice of American cheese.

When my sandwich from the 101 came, it was plain toasted bread, a tomato, red leaf lettuce and the egg with cheese. ‘Close enough’ I thought. A few bites in I got quite the unexpected surprise. Apparently, another completely valid way of doing a fried egg sandwich is to leave the yolk runny. In England a fried egg sandwich is called an Eggs Banjo. It gets that name from that first bite into the yolk and the messy explosion that ensues. You pull the sandwich out and away from your body so as not to spill on yourself and it looks like you are running your hand up the fingerboard of a banjo. I was not expecting this and got slimy yellow all over my hands. Eating the rest of it became a bit of a chore. If I put the sandwich down it meant knifing and forking it which was not the kind of sandwich I was looking for. Flavor wise it was a perfectly fine sandwich. The tomato, which I hold in low regard when it is presented by itself, really worked well with the egg and bread. The lettuce was unnecessary. The toast could have used some butter on at least one slice, since the expectation seems to be there that you will be sopping up the yolk.

Normally this meal comes with hash browns, on this day however there was no more hash browned potatoes to be had. They offered me french-fries instead. I love french-fries. Some might see that as a negative that the 101 had run out of a diner staple, and really it is, regardless of my love for the fries. What if I were jonesing for hash browns? This would have been totes uncool. How could they possibly make it up to me? I’ll tell you how- Sweet Potato fries mixed in with the regular ones. Oh man, that was delicious.

The service was sketchy at best throughout. From the lack of silverware to the lack of refills on the coffee, I seemed mostly invisible. I can understand that if I were in some dark corner booth but I was at a table literally within ten feet of the register. My waitress, who was also the hostess seemed to be spread just a bit too thin. She wasn’t the only waitress there though. Another girl seemed to do nothing except walk up and down the nearly empty counter with a snotty look on her face (plus, she wore one of those Red China olive drab caps which is just annoying).

When it came time for dessert I asked my waitress what pies they had. “Cherry and Apple but I wouldn’t recommend them.” She steered me toward a fruit cobbler. I passed. Although I did not partake this time, the 101 is known for its delicious and eclectic milkshakes. You won’t find the industry standard three flavors here. Instead you will see peanut butter and honey (my favorite) or blackberry or the black and white concoction with a shot of espresso. Do these make up for the pie that is apparently so bad the staff dissuades you from ordering it? Not at all but they are tasty.

Price: $7-12 for most entrees
Food: Good enough.
Service: Lacking.

Atmosphere: Retro Fun.
Pie: Yes, but don’t do it.

101 Cofee Shop

6145 Franklin Ave

Los Angeles CA

(323) 467-1175

Thoroughly Morning Millie's!

Millie’s opens at 7:30am according to the sign in the window. I walked in a shade before 8 and found the handful of staff still doing prep work. Shade umbrellas were going up for the outside tables, food was still being brought in from the delivery truck, and only half the tables had menus and utensils put out. For a solid minute, I was the only person actually inside the restaurant. I sat myself.
Millie’s is very small. No more than eight tables in the dining room, about six chairs at the counter and a few tables outside. It is cramped by modern standards. Now I have nothing to back this up, but I imagine that back in 1926, when Millie’s was founded, “intimate” diners and coffee shops like this were the norm. [From what I understand though Millie's has only been in this location since the 50s.] Another holdover from the grand old days of neighborhood diners, as seen in Hopper’s Nighthawks, is Millie’s massive storefront window. It faces out onto Sunset Blvd and only a quarter of it is covered by concert posters for local venues.
I was their first customer of the day, clearly. For this reason, I cannot speak about what the service would be later in the morning or around lunch. I will say that although I went through my meal largely invisible because of the kitchen prep, my coffee was refilled regularly, my check came without me asking and that’s really all that matters.
I had three cups of coffee. My first one had a solid smooth nutty flavor. My second cup did taste a little burnt. If you are used to Starbucks coffee you would probably find no problem with it. My third was back to the first flavor. I did like that cream was already on the table and it did not come in little plastic containers.
Millie’s specialty is the “mess”, think of a more precise “scramble”. Like an egg pancake in the proper round shape. Like a pancake you get at restaurants not the lopsided “Look it’s a dinosaur!” shape you make at home. I chose the “Devil’s Mess”- 3 eggs, spicy Cajun turkey sausage, cheddar cheese and topped with salsa, sour cream and guacamole. It comes with rosemary potatoes and a home made biscuit.

From where I sat I could see into the kitchen and noticed that a large tray of biscuits was already prepared. This lead me to believe that although these were “home made”, they were not “fresh.” I then saw that the rosemary potatoes were already warming on the griddle. I wanted to believe that whoever opens the restaurant in the morning immediately makes the biscuits and preps the potatoes.
When my food arrived after a very short wait- I was still the only patron in the restaurant- I checked out the biscuit. The biscuits at Millie’s are made in muffin tins giving them a muffin shape. I tore off the biscuit top and took a bite. It was cold but maintained the doughy moisture that I love in some breads. I love that hint of raw dough. Hell, I love raw dough period. I have been known to crack open a tube of Pillsbury and go to town. I now believe that Millie’s biscuits are probably made at the end of the day and fridged over night. The potatoes I have no theory about. They were simply tasty.
The mess was also thoroughly tasty. It was a giant of an egg pancake. It was light but not fluffy. I think sausage’s presence precluded “fluffy” from being part of the equation. The sausage had a kick to it without overpowering the cheese and egg. The salsa added a fresh, clean flavor overall. I was surprised at how well the guacamole-which I am usually cocking an eyebrow to when it’s included in a meal that doesn’t involve black beans or chips-worked with the flavors. It was a lot of good food. I even had to leave a few bites on the plate, it was so filling. I literally went all day without filling hungry again.
It was 8:30 before any more people showed up in the restaurant. From what I understand it is often packed to the gills later in the morning and for lunch. It closes in the mid-afternoon so it is a no-go for the dinner and pre/post bar scene.

I saw no desserts on the menu which of course means no pie, which in turns means I cannot fully endorse Millie’s. It was however a great diner experience. I highly recommend it.

Price: $10-14 for most entrees
Food: Healthy and Good
Service: Adequate
Pie: No pie.

3524 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, 213-664-0404