John’s Cafe

Good prices, great selection of breakfast foods (and I’m picky about breakfast), huge menu with lots of different choices. Great service, friendly, you can tell there were lots of repeat customers. Will be back soon!

The cabbage rolls are delicious and my husband loves their breakfasts I reviewed this before and will say it again… pass on the corned beef sandwich Not home cooked meat… lunchmeat.

I’ve been here for both breakfast and lunch now. My friend and I really enjoyed our breakfast last time and I really liked my buffalo chicken sandwich today. It comes with bacon. I’m not a bacon person so I can take it or leave it, but I added avocado and that added a yumminess (yes, it’s a made up word) to it. The fries are homemade, but they’re not fantastic. I’d order them again though. I will keep coming to try different things. The waitstaff is super nice and friendly.

Excellent family owned restaurant. Breakfast is affordable and very good. I especially enjoyed the migas. The ambiance is definitely dark and bland and could use some brightening and direction… But the food more than makes up for it. Definitely recommend Johns for breakfast.

Good breakfast. Place was empty, kind of weird for a Friday morning at 7am. but service was good and food was good as well. Nothing exceptional but no complaints. definitely would recommend for a good breakfast.

The special of the day was baked pork chops. Thought «how can they ruin that?» Should have thought again. Came out so dry and tough I could not eat more than one bite. Thought it might be me, but two other tables complained as well.
Ordered eggs & waffle to replace chops with sugar free syrup. 2 eggs must have been hummingbird. Never seen 2 eggs take up less than ¼ of the plate. When requested sugar free syrup, I was given 1 1.1 oz package for the entire waffle. CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP.
Noon on a weekday and there are only 4 tables. Expect them to close in the near future and it wouldn’t be a loss. Not friendly about comping meals or handling customer complaints.
Won’t be back and suggest you never come.

Excellent hangover brunch when you can’t leave the suburbs. Diner vibes. Our waitress was awesome, wish I could remember her name. The portions are huge!

My husband a I along with a couple friends were coming home from a weekend in Dallas, I had a groupon here so we decided to try it out. We ordered everything from breakfast to chicken fried steak to a salad. There wasn’t a single person at the table that didn’t like their meal. They have really good food.

John’s café is interesting, in a good way. It is very much a quaint, mom & pop sort of place, which is another way of saying it’s a bit divey/​dinery. Generous portions, good coffee, and friendly folks. Oh, and WiFi! It is definitely part of our breakfast rotation.
John’s has been around for decades, under a variety of owners. As a result, it has not your typical Texas diner fare with relatively commonplace Mexican choices, but also some interesting things, such as a Belorussian breakfast.
We keep trying different things, I have no one favorite dish. Just pick something that sounds good to you. :-D
Oh, and they said they are going to try opening for dinner in the near future…

Standard dinner, with the usual Texas Country flare on the walls. The wait staff is always attentive, and friendly (even on Sunday mornings)! The menu (at least for breakfast) is varied, yet with all the expected normal breakfast dishes. The portions are generous, and the coffee is good. Can’t really find a fault; so I guess this is why I continue going back!

I eat here every other day for breakfast. It’s a hole in the wall restaurant run by a mexican chef. He’s awesome! His bacon burritos are enormous with veggies and homemade salsa to go with it. It’s delicious. The staff is friendly and chipper considering they are up working so early in the morning. I’ve also tried their breakfast tacos; also delish. They serve lunch as well although I never make it that way around lunch time. I’ll try it soon.

I had the meaty Breakfast Skillet, with a side of biscuits and gravy.
This was a very experience: three eggs your way, tons of meat (ham, sausage, bacon), cheese, potatoes, all of it perfectly done. The biscuits and gravy was mighty tasty too.
They have a huge breakfast menu, served all day. Staff are very attentive.

My second visit here. First time breakfast and now for lunch. Had mega for breakfast. Very good large meal with homefries. Has a Mexican touch. Trying per menu for lunvh. A Russian dumpling. The former owner John must have been russian.

I’ve passed by this place a few times but never got a chance to eat there. Apparently they have new hours now or something. I hopped in for breakfast, which they serve all day.
The inside is very early 90’s looking. It really does feel like a random diner on the side of some rarely traveled road in south Texas. Industrial carpeting. Wood paneling. Texas themed artwork on the walls. It’s all very clean. A nonfunctioning clock hangs on the wall. Service is fast and friendly, and there were obviously many regulars there.
Honestly the food’s not the greatest. The waffles were pretty dry and tasteless and the sausage patties were kind of thin and gravelly. You do get butter and syrup though. The syrup came chilled, which was an unexpectedly detail oriented touch. I was sort of expecting some lukewarm container with old syrup caked to the side. The scrambled eggs were decent, although it’s impossible to screw that up. The iced coffee is a great deal though.
They should really put new batteries in the clocks though, unless the place is some sort of time warp, which would be really great.
All in all, it’s a diner, and I like diners. I also like breakfast and small, independently run businesses. ⁴⁄₅ it is.

We have lived in Plano for over 30 years and John’s Café is our go to place for a delicious, quick breakfast. The food is so good and so reasonable — we are never disappointed. While the décor might be a little tired, the staff is friendly and eager to please. They are now open for dinner and the chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes are outstanding. It is BYOB which is nice also.

My partner and I ate breakfast here this weekend. I would almost compare it to Poor Richard’s Café with similar breakfast and lunch only menus. It was not excellent but it was not bad either. The décor of the place does look old and dated inside and out. Kind of reminds me of old truck stop diners along I-​20. I think this restaurant would be a prime candidate for the TV show Restaurant Impossible. Décor aside, we were both surprised at how clean the tables, booths, and wood panel walls were. The menu was the standard breakfast fare (eggs, bacon, toast) along with some Mexican breakfast dishes. Both of us were feeling gluttonous and ready to start the day right. We ordered the chicken fried steak and eggs. I was not expecting to be blown away and assumed the steak would be your typical frozen breaded ground meat patty. Actually, it was a real piece of steak that appeared to be hand breaded. Pretty cool for a place like this. The flavor was OK. It could’ve used some seasoning in the batter and meat. The cream gravy was bland and flavorless. The eggs were perfect and the hash browns and breakfast potatoes were tasty.
Overall it was a good breakfast experience. We will probably come back and try some of the Mexican breakfast options.

A co-​worker told me about this place. They said it was good southern cooking, an old establishment that had really taken off in the last 4 – 5 years with new management. I was happy to try it, and man it was good!
Breakfast all day, which is always my favorite! The meal I got was huge. Chicken Fried Steak took up a whole plate by itself. It was probably one of the best chicken fried steak’s I’ve had while I’ve been here in Texas. The toast, delicious. Eggs and hash browns came with it too! I was so full, and by the end of it, we filled up an entire box with leftovers. It looked like we hadn’t eaten at all. Full meal in the take-​out container. Crazy. Crazy delicious! I hope to be back before I leave Texas.

Eek. We had one of those groupons or living social coupons for this place and hadn’t realized it was in Plano when we bought it. So after we drove about 40 minutes from Mckinney we were starving and looking forward to some homestyle breakfast grub.
Maybe we ordered the wrong things but we were WAY underimpressed with the food. Husband ordered waffles, biscuits and gravy, and hashbrowns. I got an eggwhite omelete with cheese and spinach. His waffle was so dense and floury it was almost inedible (like the batter wasn’t mixed right?), the biscuits were the kind you might buy at Sams and if they were homemade, they were badly made, the gravy was obviously instant, watery and gross. My eggwhite omelette had a ton of spinach, and almost no cheese which made it kind of gross and tasteless. The service was also incredibly slow.
We were really excited when we saw the other reviews for this place and were able to grab a coupon, but it really did not rise to the occasion.

Finally! We got around to trying John’s Café. Several friends have told us that we have to try it. We’ve been by it a hundred times and every time we’d say, «We’ve GOT to try that place.» Well, we did, but only after our Saturday morning favorite breakfast place (Poor Richard’s) was packed to the gills… must’ve been the Soap Box Derby in downtown Plano that drove ‘em in.
John’s Café is located in an obscure little shopping strip fairly close to «Fry’s»… the electronics store. The first thing that impressed us as we walked in was their friendliness and cleanliness as well as that feeling of stepping back in time about 40 years or so.
Our waitress was exceptional. Everything was very good.
The BIG «complaint» I’ve got is that «it’s so dang QUIET» in there! If you want to discuss business or personal matters… don’t! Just focus on the good eating and keep your «yummy» groans to yourself.
And one other thing, they have one television monitor that was playing CNN, which to me is an aversion. I don’t want to be distracted by «it» even if it was on mute. Sure, easy for you to say, «Just look away.» Or, «Focus on the food.» Yeah, right. You try it.
Any way, my suggestion for John’s Café is to bring up some music and put the TV on ESPN and I’ll give you that fifth star because your breakfast was great! We’re going back for lunch sometime real soon. Oh, and they give you a «Frequent Diner Card» where on your 10^th visit, you get one free.

A party of four including myself had lunch here today. One of our group had visited John’s Café a number of times prior, but it was the first visit for the rest of us. Ambiance is definitely small, local diner with the waitstaff knowing many regulars by name. Service is simple, «unfussy» and friendly. As for the food, since we all ordered different plates and shared a bite, I’ll list the items with comments:
Rolls; Yeasty with a good texture and great taste. Served with real butter, albeit whipped. A winner.
Green beans and black eyed peas: From a can, wholly unremarkable.
French fries and fried okra: From a frozen bag. Average at best.
Mashed potatoes with brown gravy: Fresh with small chunks, tasted pretty good.
Meatloaf: A little dry, but a HUGE portion served with tomato sauce. No major fillers noticed, and flavor was pretty good.
Chicken fried steak: Most likely frozen and pre-​battered; not a standout, but not bad, either.
Russian pork stew: I didn’t get the Russian influence, but it was a hearty stew with chunks of pork roast, potatoes and carrots in a mild savory sauce. I liked it.
Fried catfish: Now, we’re getting somewhere. This dish was delicious. A monstrous fillet, battered to perfection with a cornmeal batter, it was flaky, tender and just fantastic. Definitely the biggest winner of the meal, and more than worth coming back for.
As mentioned above, service was warm and efficient, and most of all, the price was right. Most of the entrees were under $ 10, andthey have a large served-​all-​day breakfast menu that I’d like to try sometime.
Overall, this place isn’t going to blow your socks off, but they have good, down-​home food at great prices and with friendly service.