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San Diego Gaslamp Review: Lee's Cafe

Posted by todd Tue, 28 Nov 2006 06:01:00 GMT

Man I love living downtown.

San Diego is a great city, with every imaginable kind of restaurant. Thai, Peruvian, Afghan. You can also find whatever ambiance suits you. Casual, Hip, Swank.... Homeless.

Lee's Cafe (5th between F&G)

I may have mentioned Lee's before... it is the hub of crazy people. If this were a video game, it's where the monsters would come out of. The spawn point if you will. All the crazies/homeless guys eat there. In fact, I even saw a guy NOT eat there. He had no arms. He came in and sat down.. grumbled a bit.. they said hi.. and he left. You know you are a cool place when patrons just come in to grunt.

It's also where *I* eat breakfast whenever I manage to eat breakfast or I'm hungover (yes yes.. I'm sure that says something). I imagine being homeless in San Diego is like having every night be a REALLY late night out, so it makes sense.

Mr. and Mrs Lee have been there for a *long* time. My theory is that they are Chinese slackers. They showed up 20 years or so ago, and excitedly opened their establishment... doing all the exciting "starting a company things".

cutting out cereal box covers and taping them to the wall as a sort of kindergarten menu.

VERY carefully pricing the items on their vast menu to some exact formula (the equation written in Chinese for added complexity).

Everything has an odd price, like $2.36. After that they said "Fuck it, putting those little numbers on the board is a bitch", and never changed the prices again.

That's Lee's Cafe to this day. The most expensive thing on their menu is a T-Bone(no relation) steak , and that costs.... seriously... $7.48. You can get anything there. T-Bone steak and smokes? 10 bucks (and 3 cents).

You can get a FULL BREAKFAST there (a guy breakfast.. 2 eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, and coffee), for THREE DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee aren't great business people. Hell, they don't really even have a sign, but they make good bacon.

It's easy to tip them more than the meal costs, because you almost feel like you are ripping them off. I mean hell, once you factor in the smoke damage, I couldn't even *make* breakfast for $3.50.

Recently it came to my attention that many of the old places in the Gaslamp have absurdly cheap leases from the government or something. Like, $0.25-$0.35 per square foot which means they need to sell like 700 eggs per month to pay the rent....

everything else has is gravy.

I suggest you check it out. If you want company, just scream out the door like you are on fire... I'll come over and say hi.