Any old-school diner recs between Oakland and Vacaville? Preferably with chicken fried steak?

[daveena]

Got to go to Vacaville tomorrow, trying to figure out where to eat. Bf loves old-school diners, and esp loves CFS,so would love any recs along that line.

Otherwise, my research dug up:

Pipkin's Pit BBQ in Vallejo (prob my first choice, but can't find any info on whether it's open on Sundays)

Adalberto in Fairfield for San Diego style burritos

Villa Corona in Vacaville for chilaquiles

Coyote Sam's in Fairfield for BBQ

Any other recs? Pretty open to all styles of food, looking for quick meals in the $15 pp range (price range is flexible though).

Thanks!

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Coyote Sam's
1955 Texas St, Fairfield, CA 94533

Villa Corona
1989 Peabody Rd Ste 9, Vacaville, CA 95687

[gordon wing]

Grandma's Place in Fairfield ( used to be Sandy's House of Pancakes) looks promising .....
http://www.yelp.com/biz/grandmas-plac... 1720 N. Texas St [phone]

[daveena]

Aw, that would have been perfect.

We ended up spotting two food trucks in a strip mall parking lot - Crossroad Chicken and Mark's the Spot. We had the pulled pork sandwich from Crossroad Chicken - a giant sandwich of tender flavorful pork (though not as smoky as I'd like), on good toasted bread with coleslaw, and a bean chili on the side (made with Rancho Gordo beans). Mark's the Spot was even more impressive - three sliders for $10 - an absolutely perfect fried chicken thigh sandwich (which immediately raised the question of why *everyone* doesn't do fried thighs instead of breasts - these were so much more tender and flavorful), a perfect beef slider (Niman Ranch), and a bacon, basil and brie with red onion jam. The bread was excellent, and everything tasted carefully cooked (it took a while for us to get our orders, and there weren't any orders ahead of us - these were definitely cooked to order).

[Sarah]

Please tell -- where was this "strip mall parking lot!"

[daveena]

It was the Alamo Square Shopping Center in Vacaville (the side near the freeway). I think they were there for a community event that was going on that day - looking at their websites, it doesn't seem like a regular spot for either of them. Looks like they're both Napa based.

[mlutsky]

For future reference, Rudys Can't Fail Cafe in Emeryville has a great diner atmosphere and Chicken Fried Steak as a daily special on Mondays. Check out the Guiness Stout milkshake.