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Friday, January 26, 2007, the Sacramento Breakfast Club decided to pay a visit to the Silver Skillet Restaurant, located in the Sacramento 49er Travel Plaza, which is a truck stop located off I-80, at West El Camino Avenue. We'd been talking about visiting this place for several weeks, as any restaurant that caters primarily to truck drivers and RV'ers is likely to have good food at reasonable prices, and superior coffee. It has been said that you can judge the quality of a restaurant by the number of 18-wheelers parked around it, so before we walked in the door, we knew we were in for a treat, as tractor-trailer rigs are parked everywhere.
Photo: Silver Skillet is a true truck stop restaurant, and is located next to the service station for the big rigs. As you walk in the building, you're immediately greeted by a travel store that sells everything that possibly could be needed on the road, and you can tell that it caters primarily to truckers and the RV-crowd, as they sell such items as CB radios, country and western CDs, and similar paraphernalia that truckers can't live without. To enter the restaurant, you turn to your left, passing under the huge sign that reads "Silver Skillet," taking note of the photos of previous visitors, along with their dogs, who have visited the place. As you'll walk into the restaurant, you're greeted with a sign that reads "Please Seat Yourself," which is easy to do, as there is a huge array of booths and tables of all sizes, and a counter too. As you walk by the cashier's station, be sure to say "Hi" to charming Korena, who will return your greeting with her model-quality smile and an equally friendly greeting. If only I was single and 30 years younger...
Photo: Korena poses at the cashier's station, with the assortment of souvenirs that can be purchased in the restaurant to the rear of the photo, as David and Dan pose in the background.
Photo: A photo of Silver Skillet's attractive dining room. We chose a booth near the rear of the restaurant, sat down, and immediately noticed that your fellow diners seemed to mostly be the "blue collar" or working class types, many of whom appeared to be truckers or Rv'ers; not surprising since Silver Skillet Restaurant is located at a travel plaza. The menus are located at the table, so you simply grab your menu and start figuring out what you want. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Their menu is varied, and features over 150 different items, and you can order any item from their menu at any time, regardless of the time of day or night. As you look at the menu, you'll notice that it features something for every taste, and most of the food is very traditional and trucker-oriented. The prices are very odd, with items priced at $6.31, $7.34, $2.92, with very few items that end in a 0, 5 or a 9. I've never seen a menu like this before...
Photo: Our friendly waiterss Carmen serves Dan and David their biscuits and gravy.
Photo: Dan and David smile for my camera, in anticipation of the fine breakfast that awaits them. Carmen, our waitress, took our orders and brought coffee and water for us. She's very petite, friendly, efficient, and seems to be a very nice and likeable person. As we waited for our order to arrive, we chatted about tall of the silliness that we had to endure the night before at work, and noticed that the decor of the restaurant resembles a truck stop from the 1960's, updated of course, and the menu boasts that the dining room has been recently remodeled. The menu also states that the restaurant and truck stop have been in the same location since 1972, so you know they're doing things right. The dining room is clean, open, and has an "airy" feeling, and it makes you feel comfortable and right at home. We like some of the names given to the entrées, such as the "United" Silver Scramble that David ordered, and other scrambles that feature such names as "Justice," "Liberty," "Freedom," and other such patriotic names. While David ordered the "United Scramble," featuring corned beef hash, Dan ordered the "Country Fried Breakfast," which is a chicken-fried steak, and I ordered the "Trucker's Favorite." I couldn't pass on ordering a breakfast of that name at a restaurant that caters to the 18-wheeler crowd.
Photo: My breakfast, the "Trucker's Favorite," for unusual, but attractive price of $6.31, and worth every penny of it. Oh baby is the food good! Carmen brought our meal to us in a very timely manner, and the food was attractively presented, large in quantity, and delicious in quality. My "Trucker's Favorite" breakfast consisted of a sausage patty, a huge helping of hash brown potatoes, two fried eggs, and biscuits and gravy. The biscuits are particularly good, as they are smaller, flatter, and a golden brown in color, and they're not puffed-up and fluffy like many biscuits served at other restaurants. They taste like they were made at home! The sausage gravy is outstanding, as it features chunks of sausage in the gravy, which is something that drives us wild. All of us remarked what a delicious meal we enjoyed, and how we received a huge bang for our bucks.
Photo: I can't resist a kitchen photo when I get the opportunity, and the kitchen of the Silver Skillet Restaurant is squeaky-clean, just the way I like it, as attentive staff wait to serve waiting truckers, diners and everybody else. The best part of the dining experience was paying for the meal. Paying the $31.00 dollar bill wasn't the part that was fun, but that part was painless, and the meal we enjoyed was delicious and reasonably priced, but the fun part was paying for the meal. Huh? What I mean is getting the opportunity to do a bit of mild flirting, and engaging in pleasant conversation with the lovely Korena, Silver Skillet's talented, beautiful, and friendly cashier. Naturally while paying the bill, I felt compelled to engage in a bit of friendly male/female banter, and when the bill was paid, it was time to snap a photo or two. Korena readily agreed to having her photo taken, and offered to hold up a menu as a prop (she really doesn't need a prop...) which I readily agreed to. A passing customer remarked that he'd volunteer to have his photo taken with Korena, and I was getting ready to perform the deed, he somehow vanished. Maybe he lost his nerve? Maybe his wife appeared? Anyway, after we left the restaurant I realized that I could have got one of my buddies to snap a photo of me, hugging Korena.. what was I thinking when I left the restaurant without having the act performed? I guess we'll have to pay the restaurant another visit in order to eat a delicious meal and snap another photo!
Photo: How could I resist taking a photo of a beautiful woman, as she models beside a menu? Korena is the cashier at Silver Skillet, and she's enough to break the heart of any trucker, or a free-lance journalist, such as the author... Kidding aside, this gal is friendly, efficient, and she'll make you feel at home. Way to go, girl! Silver Skillet Restaurant isn't fancy, but it serves attractive, delicious food, at very reasonable prices, and you won't walk away hungry. The staff is very friendly, and the dining room is clean, comfortable and very pleasant. The Sacramento Breakfast Club highly recommends Silver Skillet Restaurant. Silver
Skillet Restaurant Copyright(c) 2007 eRench Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. This site has been on the web since December 22, 2002. Web page design has been created by eRench Productions, Inc., custom photography for any occasion...
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