Noshing with Sandi: Corvette Diner

By Sandi Masori

SAN DIEGO –It’s hard to believe that anyone in San Diego doesn’t know the Corvette’s Diner, but on the off chance that someone reading this might be new to San Diego, I figured why not write a review..  We went there to celebrate my son’s birthday, just a small family celebration of  the kids, myself and my bestie.  Location was my son’s choice because he loves the game room.

For purposes of this review, I’m going to assume the reader has never been there. The Corvette is a San Diego institution.  When I was a kid it was located in Hillcrest, but in recent years it has moved to Liberty Station in Point Loma.  I have to admit, I liked the old location better, but that’s probably just nostalgia.  I did every one of my teenage/ young adul,t non-parent birthday celebrations there- so I guess from 16 and up.

It’s a 50’s style diner that is HUGE on ambiance and personality.  There’s a real Corvette in the middle of the room.  The servers do line dances from the 50’s as a mini floor show. They have magicians and balloon twisters and now a game room. Much of the decor is posters of famous rock and movie stars.. They evoke the 60s and 70s a bit as does the music ,which is played by a live dj. Yes he even takes requests.  It’s not a quiet place.

The servers are hired for their personality.  Our server, Charlotte was awesome!! She has exactly the outgoing energetic personality that you would expect from such a place and made sure that our visit there was perfect.  As you can imagine, the kids didn’t want to sit down much as they were playing so they would come by for a bite and then go back to the game room.  Charlotte decided that since we couldn’t get them to sit long enough to do the birthday shtick, she’d bring the party to them.  So she picked me up, gathered a few other servers and a bowl of ice cream with a candle and ambushed my son with a raucous birthday song.  As she said to me, “If he won’t come here so we can embarrass him, we’ll do it there.”  I think that he enjoyed it coming to him even more than he would have at the table.

But that was dessert,and I really should tell you about the food that came before it.  Honestly, the food is just okay.  My younger son wanted the “garbage” tray which is served on a platter and is a whole bunch of fried stuff.  That was as you would expect- and my son enjoyed it very much.  Usually when we go, we get a burger, and they do have some really creative and yummy burgers, but we wanted to try something different.  My friend ordered the tuna melt and it was okay.  She liked it, but I found it to have too high  a “squish factor” —  that is that the tuna had a lot of mayo so it was very soft and didn’t have much texture.  My other son ordered the grilled cheese sandwich and that was also just okay. I ordered the French dip, and I have to be honest, it wasn’t very good- the meat was tough and dry, and in the end I sent it back.

Here’s the thing though, while I can only really give them a 5 for the food, for the service I give them a full 10 (yes, I know, can you believe it!?).  I wasn’t planning to send the sandwich back, but they insisted when they realized I wasn’t eating it.  You can buy a combo that comes with food and a game card, which is what we had done, and when they took the sandwich off our bill, they let me keep the card.   From the manager, to the server to the food runner, they were super attentive and committed to making it a great experience and that really came through.

As for an overall score, I’m really torn.  For ambiance and customer service it’s easily a 10, but the food on this visit really wasn’t up to par.  Usually I won’t write a review if I can’t give the food at least a 7, but because the rest of it was so good, I thought that it was worth covering all the same.  We will definitely go back, but I think next time I’ll stick to the burgers.

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Sandi Masori is the food and restaurant reviewer for San Diego Jewish World.  When she’s not hanging with her kids or reviewing restaurants, she helps her clients self-publish their non-fiction books.