Dick Church's Restaurant — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

Difficult to enter the building. Front entrance is blocked off with a sign directing you to enter through the patio (a large wooden enclosure with no "entrance" signage). Luckily, I was able to follow another patron in. After walking through the patio, a drinking hangout with kids crawling under my feet and metal dog bowls strewn about, I attempted to open one of their double doors. Locked. Only one was unlocked.

The maze leading up to the dining area was encompassed by inadequate signage, random painted racing stripes all over the walls, and a small and obnoxiously loud bar area. I stood at the diner bar area for a couple minutes and left after not being acknowledged and realizing the lack of visible POS would become problematic in my attempt to order take-out.

I walked back into the small bar area and (over the unnecessarily loud music) had to yell to the bartender that I am interested in ordering take-out. She assured me she would fetch someone, but after what felt like am eternity, I gave up and left. All I wanted was a breakfast burrito 🌯 😫

Update: I am grateful the owner acknowledged my experience. While locals and regulars might effortlessly navigate this place, my first impression was that it's rather unwelcoming to newcomers. I hope the dynamic changes because I am still looking forward to trying their breakfast burrito (if I can manage to get my...

A really delicious breakfast option in Costa Mesa. I would not really call it a diner because it is a bit more upscale than that. It does have a very 1960s, early 70s vibe to it which I loved. Inside is very large and there are many different rooms with different seating options. They also have indoor and outdoor seating. There’s a large free parking lot attached so we were able to find a space a few feet from the door. Our server was extremely polite and everything that we ordered came out faster than expected.

They have a very large menu with all sorts of classic dishes on it, but there’s enough variety that you will be able to try different items during each visit. I started off with a cup of the Chili and thought it was surprisingly good. It had a very hearty flavor to it, lots of meat, and it was seasoned really well. I also loved that they covered it in onions and overall I really enjoyed it. For my breakfast I chose the Country Fried Steak because I’ve only heard great things about it. I can confirm it is delicious and I would recommend. It was perfectly crispy, but not overly done, and was fair in size.

Overall, a really solid breakfast or lunch option if you are in the Orange...

Nice atmosphere. Cool vintage diner feel. My first time here I try to get something simple, so I order the half soup half sandwich. Server read my sandwich options to fast so I tried to order a simple turkey and swiss. She repeats back to me grilled cheese add turkey. This was fine by me but I get the sandwich and it's too hard to eat. Okay. I order a tuna melt add bacon and brussel sprouts and potatoes. All to go. First disappointed that the bread was too hard again and the brussel sprouts were burnt and not evenly cooked and the potatoes which I was told we're cubed potatoes, we're not hand cut . Get my check and it's almost $50 all the add ons were so expensive. And the way the ticket was written was clearly to make more money. Im sure that's passed down from owners and not the servers fault. Im willing to give them another chance with breakfast. Doesn't seem I should be disappointed...