24 Hour Café

So sad to see this place has closed up. We used to travel from the high desert and South OC to this place for a nice meal. The staff was always friendly, funny, polite, and never overbearing. Very laid back and accommodating. And the food was always delicious! They definitely gave you your money’s worth.
We’ve been in search for somewhere else since last October but have yet to find anywhere else. We still talk about this place from time to time and hope that maybe, one day, it’ll be open again. Doubt it will, but still hoping.

This place is great, if you are tired of the clogged-​up California Truck stops, the 24 hour Café is a nice change of pace if your having to stay overnight or wait til Monday on a load back east!
The restaurant has real good food and large portions, after a nap you might want to watch a little TV in the Bikini Bar and knock back a few before bedtime!
Best Coconut Cream Pie in the West!

Westside for life! This truck stop has been here just as long! Not for everyone, so no perfect score. Good eats and great service at any time!

Great pork chops, great serve yourself salad and blu cheese. Trucker stop with all the trappings. Yes beer. I’ll be back

If you don’t love this place for what it is, there’s something wrong with you.
Alert for the squeamish: If you prefer tablecloths and, well, more tables as opposed to booths and a counter, this place is pretty much NOT FOR YOU. Go away.
Still with me? Cool. Here’s what you get:
1. Truck stop food with Mom & Pop panache. The beef stew is made fresh daily along with a lot of other stuff. Great cole slaw, and there’s even a dietetic section — yep, right next to the pork chops, country-​fried steak, pie and ice cream (when there’s pie) and deep-​fried tacos. You want comfort food? Prepare to be comforted.
2. The absolutely fastest wireless internet in the Greater Los Angeles area. And it’s free. Don’t ask — just enjoy.
3. Beer garden, bar, and bikini-​clad bartendresses. I shat thee not. Separate-​ish from the restaurant itself and on the way to the showers (it is a truck stop, remember), you will see a bar that looks like it came out of a casino. Why? Because it did come out of a casino — the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, as a matter of fact.
4. Service. No-​nonsense, efficient restaurant service. I recommend late night for an unhurried experience if you need to finish up a project and your home internet got flaky. They do a serious breakfast business here as well, and it’s clearly busier then — the waitresses will get you served straightaway.
5. Back to the bikini-​clad bartendresses. Only in the bar, not in the restaurant. Be nice to them; the bouncer is effective, and has been doing his job probably longer than you’ve been alive. It’s a nice touch in a place that’s been, primarily, a restaurant since the 1940s.
Some of you may remember this as Dirty Dorothy’s. Dorothy is still with us (them, I should hasten to say — I’m not related to the family), god bless her, and is still involved with strategic decisions. Come support one of the last enduring Mom & Pop truck stops on the continent. And try the beef stew.

My husband and I have eaten here often. We are truckers. The food is very good. I think we have almost tried everything on the menu and have never been disappointed. I really love their Coleslaw (it has pineapple in it) and their Three Bean Salad (it has a creamy dressing on it). It is outdated inside and the regulars are strange but it is very good food for Truckers and anyone willing to give it a try. Cash only!

Thank you, Unilocal,for an excellent suggestion. This place is so close and it’s one of the only places you can eat late at night in Long beach! It’s a real truck stop with truck parking and mom & pop there to serve you and bring you a fresh tray of cookies at the end of your meal. They are so sweet and friendly here. The food isn’t the best of the best but it’s good for the price you pay. The menu online is only a small selection of what they have. The chalk boards are full of specials. and there are a lot of specials. I would so rather come here than either the Denny’s or Johnny Rockets. You can get anything you would expect from a diner. Breakfast. sandwiches… steak. soup. fish. whatever. They have such a huge menu. The only thing lacking are veggies. But who needs veggies at a truck stop? Oh. and there’s a garden and a bikini bar next door. lolz…

This place is fantastic. GOOD home style breakfast. The ‘Breakfast Special’ is delicious, french toast… yummmy. Phiily Cheessteak… mmmm soooo good

Open 24 hours. It’s almost like a Denny’s, just not as crowded. Service is good. Huge menu, tasty with good pricing.

Don’t let the nickname Dirty Dorthy’s scare you.
How often do you eat at a real truck stop, in the heart of the port area?
I’ll bet the answer is somewhere between almost never and never. Come on, live a little.
This is the real thing. Not some gentrified retro dive. Start humming Nighthawks At The Diner as you walk in.
I mainly go for the breakfast, but I hear that the beef stew is very good. Next trip, I’m trying it.
Oh yah, they have beer. Beer is always the beverage of choice with my eggs & ham at 2 AM.
Screw the chain restaurants. Get real. Save the locals by spreading your hard earned bucks around.

I’ve been eating at «DIRTY DOROTHY’S» for years, mostly because I (usually) enjoy the clam chowder, although from time to time I must confess that it is a bit more like REALLY thick fishy potato soup, because the servers are pleasant and efficient, and because, when I’m REALLY HUNGRY the large ham steak fills me up at breakfast and there’s always enough left over for dinner. The corned beef hash is homemade and quite good. Grits are available (not unheard of in Long Beach but not that easy to find, either). AND there’s a patio for smokers.
BUT BEWARE! EVERYTHING «extra» costs. If you’d like raisens with your oatmeal, salsa with your sausage, cottage cheese instead of potatoes — in short, ANYTHING that is at all out of the ordinary– it wll show up on your bill. And don’t be suprized to hear the owner/​manager bawling out a waitress (or even a Customer!) right in the restaraunt! It has been mentioned in another review that the owner passes out cookies to his customers. Quite true. But if you ever catch him helping a snowed server by pouring coffee, taking or delivering an order, or bussing a dirty table, take a photo and send it to Ripley’s.
The food is pretty bland, pretty unimaginative, but not too pretty on the plate. Mostof the vegetables are canned (the green beans are usually grey!) and even when fresh vegetables are used, make sure that you have plenty of salt and pepper on the table (and be grateful that you’re not charged using them!)
There are a few good reasons to patronize the 24 Hour Café, and a few that might put you off your food. You should try it (at least once) and see what you think.

Ok, first off for the folks who have a stick up their as$… go somewhere else. IF you think eating at places like Olive Garden is real italian food… then don’t even bother stopping here.
Your yuppie as$ wouldn’t even be welcome.
However… if you are adventurous, and want real good, home style cooking and aren’t afraid of your own shadow, then come here.
Slight warning to those who are afraid of the Blue Collar society, don’t come here and expect a waitress to treat you like a fu ki ng princess. Order your food be nice to her and keep your trap shut.
No, I don’t know the owner; actually I have seen the owner and he seems like a dick. I come here for the good food and excellent service (yes the waitress is nice to me because I’m not some yuppie scumbag who is a jerk).
If you are hungry, and I mean HUNGRY, order the Big Rig Special. Just be hungry, because the cut of ham you will get is HUGE!

Eat here. Support this kind of place or it will go the way of the Good Charlotte.
It’s the real deal. 24 truck diner. Deals don’t get any realer.
I had great biscuits and gravy last time. The best I’ve had in a while. Cash only though. That will probably be their doom. That’s why they compete with Jack N The Box for late night dining. They shouldn’t have to.
Great place to watch America’s Most Wanted. Why look for fugitives from society when you can eat here and have them come to you.
You can also take showers here. So if you’re on the lamb, you can die your hair in the shower and totally re-​invent yourself.
My dad started the sign business across the street so I used to come here when I was wee. It’s still here thank God and their sign, made by my Daddy’s company, is one of the big features of this otherwise hideous intersection.
My dad used to be so cool!

Just to let everyone know, this review is based off a very inebriated adventure. I don’t even know how I ended up in this diner last night. I have no recollection of even getting here. After stumbling out of the car, I had no idea where I was. It was a sketchy area if I remember correctly, but it was still an interesting dining experience I suppose.
Onto the food. All I said was, «white bread!» and within 10 – 15 minutes, I had a plate of eggs, ham, and potatoes with toast. I didn’t even look at a menu, I didn’t even talk to a waitress/​waiter. If only that applied to everything else in life –_​– For $ 1.99, you can’t really complain. I doused the eggs and ham with tapatio, tabasco, pepper and a dash of salt and cleaned my plate. I killed everyone else’s toast too because toast is good.
I don’t think I’ll bust a mission to come out here to eat again. But maybe one night I’ll tip back some shots and find myself here once more. If that’s the case then I wouldn’t mind.

I agree with below. Its a bloody truckstop. Okay well its not actually bloody, but it is super trucky. And awesome.
DO NOT go for gourmet here… instead think of this…
24 hours, inside seating, it’s a truck stop.
get diner food, buttered and fried eggs sandwich, or a steak and a shower, and bonus — see real truckers !!!
it’s a journey to explore with friends who should have sobered up already but aren’t ready to give up for the night
you will be seated right away and taken care of by a lady named Flo. (this may change from time to time) Its cozy inside, unlike some 24 hour diners in Long Beach (no name no name) where the wait is FOREVER and the air con plus the fans are trying to kill your so cal sense of warmth and well being.
Also, this places gives off a safe aura unlike some of my other favorite 24 hour places in LB, and I would bring kids here. Of course I would have to kidnap some to do that since I don’t have any…
side note: the atm there gives things in increments of 10 $ How Cute.
Bring Cash.

This place is kind of amazing. Firstly you have to know its a truck stop. But what a truck stop. Where else will you find wonder– trash for sale at the counter that is sold as gifts. Where else will you find wooden palm leaf fans? And where better to get breakfast at 2am?
It is a rather sketchy area, however, so be warned, but its worth it for kitsch value alone.

It’s a bloody truckstop. The reviews led me here. They were wrong. It was late on a Sunday night, and I needed a place to eat, so I searched for 24-​hour diners nearby. This came up.
It’s a diner and truckstop. No surprises there. The food is typical diner faire, with nothing standing out in particular. They sell cigarettes out of vending machines. the ground is uneven as you make your way from the entrance to the dining area.
Honestly, it was a mistake for me to come here. If you need a 24-​hour food fix, make a longer drive to Shore House or Harbor House, or heck even Denny’s.

Holy shit what a cluster fuck.
My girlfriend came across the reviews of this place on Unilocal and we were skeptical of the 5 stars, but since its around the corner from my place and we had little else to do today, we checked it out.
The people who gave it 5 stars must have done it because they don’t understand how to properly use irony. Yes, the place looks like the truckstop of your nightmares of your dreams (you following that?). You’ve got sketchy drugged out waitresses, trucks parked in the parking lot under a sign advising them if they stay the night it will cost them ten dollars (please pay inside), and a wonderfully worn in counter top.
You’ve also got discarded cigarettes in visible site under the stand up freezers and some graffitti in the bathroom that says «best blowjob in long beach, call (phone number), false teeth». I would have been in love with all of this, I mean shit they have smokes in vending machines and some trucker brought us home made cookies (with pink pastel m&ms on top. That means Valentines day or Easter, this is June, but whatever they were good) and thanked us for coming in, sweet Jesus I wanted to like it, but holy crap the food was awful.
I have to assume that either the two folks who gave this place 5 stars either didn’t eat here, or they would rate Taco Bell with 5 stars even if they saw they employees wiping their asses before handling food. Girlfriend and I shared a «truckers special» — sliced turkey and bacon with tomato and «swiss» (aka white) cheese on grilled bread. We tried to grin through it and say «we’re gonna pretend that this doesn’t scare us because we don’t want to be the uppity white cunts that look down at a place just cause it is really dirty and the milk for coffee was just sitting at our table and the mound of butter that lady is putting on toast seems to be a really weird yellow color as though its been oxidizing for a month», but it was no use, we felt awful after wards. We didn’t get sick, but I can’t imagine any reason we’d give it another chance to do so. Also, even if the food were 4 times as good as it is, this place would be over-​priced.
Don’t give a truck stop 5 stars just because you still think trucker hats are funny. People’s lives are at stake here.

This place is a truck stop. Don’t expect anything fancy. The food is awesome and it is dished out by pop and his girls. Breakfast begins with farm fresh eggs over easy, home fried potatoes with peppers and cheese, two succulent porkily pork chops and a biscuit with home made gravy (you may opt for whole wheat toast.) I often have this for dinner. They also do a really delicious beef stew, chicken and dumplings (could use a couple more dumplings.) Most of the soups are capitol Deeeelicious.
WORD TO THE WISE: DO NOT ORDER THE TACO SPECIAL!
This is the only catch to eating here. The tacos have no meat. Meeeeet. Meeeet. You must have Meeeet!
Oh, and for seven bucks, you can get a shower with soap and towel. If you’re in the mood.

The 24 Hour Truck Stop Café is prolly one of Long Beach’s best little locals only places around. Sure, you ain’t local — you can still eat there! Hell they want you to! but you can see the love of the place in the people that go there day in and day out. My Husband and I are there just about every Sat. or Sun. morning. He orders the Hobo Surprise ALL the time (no surprise there! HA) and I always get the Breakfast Special. French Toast and Bacon. Good Goddamn that bacon. They use a press on it — so it’s the best crispiest bacon ever.
If you are there early enough, you might get treated to a fresh home baked cookie that the Owner comes walking by with on a plate. THANKING you for stopping by.
It’s just all home style cooking. nothing fancy — just a nice lil’ place to pack it in before you head on out for a day’s adventure.
When entering the place, you notice all the wormwood fixtures… the yellow booths. the handmade signs with the specials. yeah, it’s like walking into a David Lynch movie. You half expect to see a woman with a log drinking coffee!!!
it’s good times, pretty damned good food. and great people working there.
one thing to remember… they are cash only — no cards, no checks. They’ve got an ATM inside if you need cash!