Refueling at Pit Stop Diner

Pit Stop Diner

3825 Mission Ave. #D1

Oceanside, CA 92058

2015 is definitely the year of the wedding for us. Before the year started we had eight weddings to attend on seven different weekends this year. Lucky for us, and unlucky for the intended bride and groom, one of the weddings was postponed, so that still left seven weddings for us to attend. All but one has required us to travel at least two hours, and stay for the weekend. Looking on the bright side, this means seven chances to eat at restaurants where we would normally not be around to eat at.

On this particular trip we were coming back from the fun filled wedding of Katie's cousin, Erin. For her wedding we stayed at Harrah's Resort in Valley Center. After much drinking, gambling, and dancing, we were ready to head home on a hazy Sunday morning. We left the hotel a little past check out time, and hit the road for the two hour, traffic filled drive back home. By the time we hit Oceanside, I definitely needed something to soak up some of the leftover alcohol that was still in my system. A quick check of Yelp guided us to Pit Stop Diner.

Pit Stop Diner is located right off of the 76 Freeway, on Mission Avenue. Situated in the same parking lot as the Oceanside Police Department, it's not the most convenient of places to stop for travelers, because there's not really close freeway access to this area. Still, the Yelp reviews were good enough that we decided to take a chance, and divert our travels by about five minutes or so.

Walking inside Pit Stop Diner, it kind of had the feel of Knowlwood's, for those of you that are familiar with the OC mini chain of hamburger stands. There's lots of car inspired/Route 66 paraphernalia all over the place. License plates and street signs hanging all over the walls, old gas pumps scattered about, and even the car above sitting right in the middle of the dining space. Not sure what kind of car it was, but I do know it was a 1962 model, with a really nice paint job.

Ordering is done at the counter, and then the food is brought out to you. Classic American food rules here. Burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, and salads dominate the menu, and breakfast is served all day long, which was a plus for Katie, who was not ready to bypass the first meal of the day, even though it was close to an hour past noon. We quickly grabbed a seat at this larger than it appears diner, and waited about five minutes for our food to come out. Let's see if the food was worth stopping for, or should we have driven on by.

I've been writing this blog for close to six years now, and one of the first things I learned during this time is that burritos are some of the most boring items to photograph, which is odd because they can be some of the most delicious items you will eat. Katie had the Wreck Breakfast Burrito ($4.55). This burrito was stuffed with plenty of egg, bacon, cheese, potato, and avocado. All the essentials for a great breakfast burrito. Katie was very pleased with her selection, and loved the amount of avocado used here. She ate this so quickly that I did not even have a chance to try it, so we'll take her word for it.

Unlike the boring looking burrito above, the camera loves chili dogs. The first of the two things that I hoped would sustain me until we got home was this Chili Cheese Dog ($3.49). This chili dog was pretty good sized, but was definitely better off eaten with a fork. The dog was split, and got a nice crispness from the flattop. It had a slight crunch when bitten into. Topping the hot dog was plenty of chili, shredded cheese, and diced onions. The chili here is very mild, and did not offer much in the way of flavor. This could be due to the fact that there was plenty of onions and cheese also occupying this. Not a memorable chili cheese dog, but it does look better in the pictures than it tasted while we were here.

Part two of my meal was this Bacon Avocado Cheeseburger Combo ($6.35). A very standard burger, with a very thin patty. The burger was saved by the crispy bacon, and the generous serving of avocado slices included on this. They kind of went a little overboard with the lettuce on here, but it was easily discarded, which showed more truly how thin the patties are at Pit Stop. The fries were okay, as they're your standard fast food fries. Not the best burger I've had, but not the worst by a long stretch.

Pit Stop Diner definitely hit the spot for what we were looking for on this afternoon. The food here is not going to blow you away, but it's pretty solid for what it is, diner food. It kept Katie and I full all the way back up the 5 Freeway. Ordering at the registers was a little slow, but other than that, the service was great here. There's also enough variety to keep everyone in your party pretty happy, including the person that's going to be paying for the meal. I mean, under seven dollars for a combo meal is something that just doesn't happen very often, even at the large fast food joints. The low cost of this meal, helped to offset some of the loses I incurred at the casino during this this wedding stay, which was very much appreciated. Now on to the next wedding.

Out of five pink racecars, (because when I hear the words pitstop, it always makes me think of Penelope Pitstop from the Wacky Racers, who drove a pink car in that cartoon), five being best to zero being worst, Pit Stop Diner get 2.5 pink racecars.

Pit Stop Diner has a very limited website, which you can see here: http://pitstop.menutoeat.com/