Corvette Diner - Toot Sweet 4 Two

Looking for a fun, family-friendly place for a special celebration? Or, just want to go out for a meal where the vibe is funky and different? Corvette Diner in San Diego is just all that – fun, family-friendly, funky, different. And, reasonably priced.

Here’s a riddle for you: what do you get when you have a person in a wheelchair, a person on a mobility scooter, a person using a walker and a person pushing a stroller? Answer: restaurant owners and employees running for the door! Just kidding! But when we, as a family unit, descend on any restaurant or venue, we are a force to reckon with and a sight to behold! Accommodating all of our paraphernalia can be a challenge for any restaurant and venue.

But, the Corvette Diner is up to the challenge with wide aisles, tables not crammed together, easily adaptable tables and chairs plus easy parking with a large, flat lot near the restaurant (and over-looking the bay). A win-win all the way around for us!

Recently, to celebrate my sister’s birthday (Tiffany’s mother and the Princesses P’s grandmother), she chose the Corvette Diner. Located in the Point Loma community known as the Historic Liberty Station area of San Diego, Corvette Diner is a throw-back to the nostalgic ’50’s and ’60’s rock-and-roll era. Near downtown San Diego, Historic Liberty Station with restaurants, retail and commercial operations is located on the former Naval Training Center that was decommissioned and closed in 1997.

With renovated historic naval buildings that are on the National Register of Historic Places, this beautiful and vibrant neighborhood has lots of open space, rolling green vistas, plenty of parking and views of San Diego Bay, harbor and downtown San Diego beyond. Add to all of this ambiance our glorious San Diego blue-sky days (probably 90% of the year), and it’s just another “ho-hum day in paradise” as my mother says.

Greeted by hostesses dressed in poodle skirts, your senses kick into overdrive with the electric atmosphere of bright colors of retro ’50’s décor, flashing neon lights and the pounding beat of ’50’s and ’60’s music blaring from KVET radio station’s disc jockey, located front and center behind a vintage corvette on display. San Diego casual, this restaurant is touristy but on the day we ate there (a Saturday lunchtime in March), there was no waiting and we were seated quickly.

1958 Corvette inside the Corvette Diner

We were escorted back to a room with brightly painted red walls with toy cars glued on a roadway painted on the wall and aluminum diamond-plate as a wainscot. So cute! If I had a little boy, I’d steal this idea for a boy’s room! And, there was the requisite giant neon Corvette on the wall.

Toy cars on the wall at the Corvette Diner.

Waiters’ paper diner hats were at every place setting and Samantha put hers on right away and got a cuddle from her niece, Princess P.

Princess Sweetie Pie had fallen asleep in the car – it’s about a 35 mile drive from her house to the Corvette Diner and what 3-year-old doesn’t fall asleep on a long car ride? Anyway, she started to wake up once we settled into our table and needed some snuggles from her mommy to acclimate to her new surroundings.

After deciding what I wanted to eat, I excused myself and wandered around to take pictures of this rockin’ place! I’ve clumped them together in categories and the collage above shows some of the fabulous neon lights scattered all around the restaurant.

Above are some of the fun and wacky decorations at the Corvette Diner. This Mr. Universe is gigantic – at least 10 feet tall! Plus the front of a Corvette looms precariously out of a wall and a montage of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe series plasters an area near a back door.

In homage to the ’60’s, they’ve created a room painted with blacklight paints in various bright neon colors representing the hippy-dippy days of my generation. This room was so much fun, but hard to photograph. After adjusting some of the settings on my camera, it accommodated the low light and the wild glow-in-the-dark paint enough that I got the shots above.

I particularly love the yellow submarine because I love the Beatles. Doesn’t everybody? I remember I was stunned to learn that Tiffany, while in her twenties, wanted a Beatles album. I don’t remember which one; I just remember she asked for it for her birthday or Christmas. Proves they are timeless!

The photos above are ones taken before adjusting my camera setting! Kinda like being on some kind of psychedelic trip!

I am he as you are he as you are me…

I am the eggman

They are the eggmen

I am the walrus

Goo goo g’joob

-I Am the Walrus, by The Beatles

The above photo is some of the different sections. They have a cocktail bar, a soda fountain, an arcade room they call the Gamers Garage plus the different dining sections of the restaurant. I love the section shown in the largest photo above with the TV’s built into the walls playing Andy Griffith reruns – a wonderful, iconic show from my generation in endless reruns on TV Land…love, love, love!

Loud and fun, the Gamers Garage was packed with people (mostly children and teenagers) having a great time with all the arcade games. I’m surprised I managed to get a few pictures with hardly any people!

When I came back to our table after being gone about 15 minutes to take pictures, my sister, Gail, had a new “do” – a hair-do created with straws! “What happened to you?” I asked. “A waitress came by and asked if I wanted a new hair-do, so I said yes!” she replied.

Within a few minutes, the waitress came back with a new supply of straws and expertly and easily created a Straw Hair-do for Tiffany to the delight of the Princesses P!

Then, if straw hair-dos wasn’t enough fun, the Balloon Man came along and created fabulous balloon hat creations for both Princess P and Princess Sweetie Pie. Princess Sweetie Pie was skeptical at first and stayed in her stroller. But, the Balloon Man knew how to charm her and soon she jumped out and asked her daddy for help with wearing her new hat!

Princess Sweetie Pie with balloons.

Happy Princess Sweetie Pie!

Serving generous portions of comforting, standard diner fare (wings, sliders, chicken fingers, burgers and other sandwiches, salads, soups and chili, milk shakes and malts, desserts) as well as specialty platters such as a meat loaf dinner, pork chops, chicken fried steak, spaghetti, and a kid’s menu, their extensive menu of classic American food assures that everyone in your party will find something they like.

The menu itself is a fun “read” with cute and crazy names such as Garbage Plate, Boneless Dinosaur Wings, Slap Me Some Skins, Hubcap Sliders, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (a burger), Peggy Sue’s Pastrami, Hot Diggity Dog, Blues Brothers – I could go on, but you get the picture! With a lot to choose from and much to read, it takes a bit of time to get through the menu to make your decision!

Sorry I don’t have many pictures of the food! Everyone was so hungry that once the food arrived there was a collective effort by all to inhale their food as fast as possible, leaving me, the photographer, with burgers with giant bites out of them and decimated fries! Next time I need to be better prepared to handle hungry partiers!

Our waitress was friendly and attentive and after we finished eating, she brought over a crew of co-workers to sing happy birthday. While many restaurants send a crew to your table to sing happy birthday, Corvette Diner’s crew puts on a show! Doing dances popular in the ’50’s and ’60’s, they are awesome and loud commanding the room as if it were a stage and absolutely fabulous!

Sorry for the blurry pictures – still trying to learn how to use my fancy, dancy camera and I didn’t have it set at the right setting to capture the crazy, hopping, clapping dance these dancers did. There were about 6 dancers that descended on us suddenly and it was over before I really got the camera ready to capture this part! Fair warning: if you want good pictures, suggest you be camera-ready for the spur-of-the-moment things that happen when you come to the Corvette Diner with a birthday girl!

After the song and dance show, our waitress showed up with ice cream and a giant birthday candle for the birthday girl! Notice the Leprechaun Cake on the right? That was my attempt at a special birthday cake for my sister (her birthday is in March). You can read about this cake adventure here: The Leprechaun Cake Wreck Caper.

Here’s a link to their site: Corvette Diner. On their site you’ll find their full menu and information about various types of party packages available (just in case you want to have your birthday party there!).

P.S. This isn’t a sponsored post and I was not compensated for writing this review. It’s just my opinion and a way for me to help promote the community and surrounding areas in which I live!

Tootles,

(other restaurant reviews and posts about San Diego)

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