Emmy Lou's Diner Cafe Review

1429 W Imola Ave
Napa, CA 94559
(707) 224-6339
Google Maps to Emmy Lou's

Sometimes you're in the mood for diner food, and Emmy Lou's is a pretty good pick. Located in a large, drab blue-collar shopping mall in Southern Napa, it caters to an older, middle-class crowd with some interesting twists. It mostly focuses on breakfasts and lunches, but it has an admirable goal of having higher-end dinners that are reasonably priced for its customer base. The dinners fall short for the price, but nice try anyway.

Breakfasts and Lunch

For breakfasts, you'll find your traditional diner breakfasts. Biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon, etc. But they'll have the next level of heavier stuff like chicken fried steak, steak and eggs, hot skillet dishes, etc. There are twists to the traditional American breakfasts. Huevos Rancheros. Eggs with linguica sausage (spicy Portuguese sausage).  Fancier omlettes. For lunches, you'll see familiar American counterparts, cold sandwiches, hot sandwiches, and burgers.  There are some nice variations such as a Santa Fe burger. Grilled chicken sandwich with pesto. And so on.

The landed gentry of Napa wouldn't be caught dead here. You could argue that this is where the real locals eat as the city of Napa is fairly blue collar overall. But if you're sort of in the mood for a real diner sort of breakfast, you should think about Emmy Lou's. I'd rather eat here than IHOP or Denny's. Gilwood's is better, but it's a bit more expensive and crowded. Emmy Lou's has a healthy selections menu, but you can take a look at the girth of the customers around you and take a guess at what they're better at. :)

Dinners

Emmy Lou serves dinners on Thursday and Friday. You can get things like Filet Mignon, a thick pork chop, braised ribs with  medallions and so on. It's somewhat cheaper than the typical high-end dinners at $15-$25 per dinner for the style of food they prepare which is mostly French or Italian derived food. The owners don't see why the middle class of Napa should be excluded from heartier higher-end meals with restaurants that mostly cater to tourists or the rich Napa types. And there is a dearth of mid-level places to eat in Napa. It seems like the vast majority of restaurants are fast food or more expensive areas that most people would consider as a fancy meal that comes with a fancy price tag.

Although the goal is admirable, the prices aren't as reasonable as you would think given the quality of the food. Once you hit $20 per dish, there are some serious expectations on the food quality, and these dishes actually give a poorer bang for the buck than the higher priced ones in the fancier areas (never mind the atmosphere). The wines were...uh...bad. I hope they continue with the concept but re-calibrate their menu to fit their goals.

Cost of our meal

breakfast / lunch - 2 meals + coffee + tax/tip = $25

dinner - 2 entrees, 2 glasses of wine + tax/tip = $70