California Diary | Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner

Peggy Sue’s Diner is a 1950s style diner located at 35654 W Yermo Rd, Yermo, CA 92339. Here’s what it’s like…

I’ve always been fascinated by roadside Americana.

You know all of those random – and often quite bizarre – little places you find right slap in the middle of the desert, or on some back road, miles from habitation? The ones you look at and think, “Who on earth would look at this lonely stretch of road and think, ‘Yup, what this place needs is a dinosaur park: let’s make it happen!'” (Because it’s always dinosaurs, isn’t it? Seriously, I’ve almost lost count of the number of plastic dinosaurs I’ve seen by the side of the road in middle-of-nowhere-America*: what gives with the dinosaurs, people?)

(*OK, it’s been, like, three times I’ve see roadside dinosaurs. I’m not very good at counting, though.)

Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner is one of those places. It’s almost halfway between Vegas and L.A., and I’d look up the exact address for you, but I’m pretty sure you won’t have any trouble finding it:

We started seeing these signs just as we left Barstow, en route to Vegas, and as soon as I set eyes on them, I set up a clamouring. “Please can we go to Peggy Sue’s 50s diner?” I pleaded. “Please? Please? Please? Please? Please?”

“No,” said the family: not unreasonably, given that we’d just stopped for breakfast at iHOP, and who wants to go to a diner right after eating a giant plate of pancakes? Answer: this girl. But the answer was still NO, so I had to content myself with extracting a promise from them that we’d stop at Peggy Sue’s on the way back to LA, instead. Now, Terry, being obsessed with maps, was a little worried we wouldn’t be able to find the place again. I, however, had no such fears, and sure enough:

You REALLY can’t miss it, trust me.

Peggy Sue’s diner isn’t just a 50s themed diner: it’s the real deal. It’s been there since the 1950s (When it would just have been a plain old ‘diner’, I guess…), and although it’s been extended since then to include a huge gift shop, and the walls have been decorated with 50s memorabilia (Which they just called “stuff” back then…), it still has that authentically 50s vibe to it. Oh, and there’s an actual Peggy Sue, too: that’s not just the name of the diner. (Don’t you think that if you had a name as awesome as ‘Peggy Sue’, you’d just HAVE to buy yourself a 50s diner, though? I mean, it would be such a waste NOT to!)

Er, I don’t expect they had the fake 50s people propping up the counter back in the day, either. Because that would just have been weird, wouldn’t it?

(Please excuse the blurry iPhone photos, by the way, and also the tragic irony of me finding myself in a 50s diner on the one day in the year when I WASN’T wearing a 50s-style dress…)

We were there for second breakfast, and I was starting to feel a bit guilty about having essentially eaten my way through Vegas, so I opted for the ‘Twiggy’ platter, which billed itself as the ‘diet’ option. Well, it WAS a salad, but it was almost as big as me, and really tasty, too, so I’m not sure how low-cal it was, but I did really enjoy it – and the wonderful service, from waitresses in 50s-stye uniforms, who called us all ‘hon’, and were so sweet I wanted to take one home with me. The family wouldn’t allow that either, though. They spoil EVERYTHING, don’t they?

Anyway, if you’re thinking Peggy Sue’s diner is just a 50s diner, you’re wrong: it’s also a dinosaur park. Because obviously.

God, I can’t tell you how much I love stuff like this. I know you probably think I’m joking, but I’m really not: it just seems like such a throwback to a more innocent time – a time when fake dinosaurs by the side of the road would be a reason to stop the car and take a look, and it’s the kind of thing that makes me feel nostalgic for something I haven’t actually experienced. Also, there were ducks:

Ya gotta love ducks, don’t you?

And so ends my Californian adventure: well, other than the video, which Terry is editing as I write this. I’ve already had to ask him to remove two scenes involving close-ups of my face without makeup, so we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes. In the meantime, it’s safe to start reading the blog again, because the holiday posts are over: until next time… (Well, until tomorrow, technically, because I have a U.S. beauty haul planned for then. That’s about makeup, though, so it totally doesn’t count…)