Dean’s Cafe

Old, dirty, linoleum floors, not very much light. My waffle was deep fried, which was gross and I refused to eat it. The path rooms are gross and small, and there is dust everywhere. You can kind of see the back kitchens, and it’s bad back there… Needs a refresh badly.

Old school downtown Pleasanton breakfast spot. If you are a fan of large portions and especially omelettes this is a must visit downtown.

Dirty old. Can’t believe they are still open. Large portions are unenjoyable when you realize it is so old and dirty in the place. Wish they would update this key location downtown and give rise to what this place could be. Imagine it was the best at one time.

The waffles are delicious! Light and fluffy inside and perfectly crisp outside with a hint of almond flavoring. Good service.

I work in Pleasanton and this morning I was really mufffuggin hungry I had an hour to kill so why not get some breakfast?!
It was 7:50 I walked around Dean’s for about 10 mins. I seen two customers eating food but nobody to help my hungry pregnant ass !
This has been added to one of the reasons why I hate Pleasanton. Everybody likes to act so high class when everything in this city is just plain cheap an dusty. Highly irritated.

Had a bland meal here… Maybe this place is for breakfast only. However my salad was tasteless with old asparagus and frozen shrimp, and the avocado sandwich had an unripe tomato with just a a slice of avocado… I am not sure how a salad and a sandwich can be so hard to make. The only thing I liked was the service, the waitress was nice. I highly suggest cutting the menu down to the best dishes that most customers love to order here and improving the service to waiters seating you to make it more personable. This place used to be busy busy and my hubby raved about it back in his high school days… Now it’s just sad to see what’s going on.

Dean’s café might have the largest menu I’ve ever seen, with over 200 dishes. They specialize in massive omelettes, with the majority of the menu devoted to every possible permutation of this dish. This portion of the menu is organized by category of omelette in terms of main ingredient of theme (ham, sausage, polish, Mexican, seafood, etc.). Anyway, I found the food here to be bland and boring. Service is perfunctory at best. Prices are way too high for what you get. Avoid.

Wowzers, if you’re looking for a HUGE breakfast/​brunch, then come here. The majority of the dishes are between $ 10 – 12. Not too bad for all of the food they give you. I came here on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving with two friends and we were able to be seated within 5 minutes. We all ordered omelettes, which came with toast and hashbrowns. Take note that the hasbrowns here are «country style» meaning they are not your classic shredded and fried hashbrowns that I know and love. Instead, they’re grilled, cubed, seasoned potatoes. Still delicious, but not what I was expecting. Side note: they also serve mimosas here!
The atmosphere has a antique, divey feel. When you first walk in it smells like an antique shop, which I’m not too fond of, but luckily I didn’t notice it after a few minutes of being in there. All of the employees I encountered were upbeat and helpful. The service was quick and pleasant!
If wake up one morning craving a hearty breakfast in cute Downtown Pleasanton, go give this place a try!

Coming in on a Sunday morning, the line was out the door. We had to wait 15 minutes, but it was worth the wait. The hostesses were friendly and appeared very efficient in getting tables cleaned to quickly seat the people waiting.
Definitely a retro atmosphere and I don’t think they changed the décor since they opened their doors in the mid 1950s. Dean’s is still serving breakfast all day in its comfortable, oversized booths. They have a huge omelet menu includes every filling from Polish sausage, salami, chorizo, avocado and even clams.
My daughter had the vegetarian omelet with rye toast where she got to custom order the ingredients. I had the corn beef hash, hash brown, three eggs and sour dough toast. Both the omelet and my corn beef breakfast were HUGE. We definitely regretted eating it all, but the food was excellent thus our justification for eating it all.
Excellent service. Very pro-​active in accommodating our needs, i.e., taking our orders quickly, refilling of coffee and water, serving our food, etc.

Time to put this place on life support. Used to be a great breakfast destination with excellent service and yummy food. The ambience was definitely retro and «antique», which was part of the charm. Now, it’s just meh food with poor service in an old room. Had probably my last meal there today. Food wasn’t terrible, it was the service that sucked. Seated quickly (because it’s Seat Yourself, and I gave me GREAT service), drink order taken then she disappeared. Finally brought by another server who was friendly enough, but was seriously lacking in the serving department. Drink was never refilled, despite my lonely and empty glass perched precariously near the edge of my table, the few remaining ice cubes melting slowly to their demise. Linguica in the omelet was dry and overcooked. Perhaps I could have used the poor ice cubes to rehydrate the meat. I guess the best part of the meal was the Tabasco sauce and the Smuckers jam packs.
Next time you’re downtown in need of a good breakfast, go to Vic’s All Star or drive a bit more down to Jim’s.

Why do we like Deans?
1. They have a super great location
2. They are on Main Street in downtown Pleasanton
3. There is parking close by
4. The wait is never ridiculously long
5. They have a ridiculously large menu of omlettes
6. Service is super friendly and fast
7. The food tastes yummy and it’s not greasy
8. There is old school charm in here
Try deans for breakfast :-)

Decided to try this place in comparison to Jims breakfast. Upon arrival, this place had a very old vibe to it and we were not greeted by anyone. Felt like I was entering an abandoned house in a movie scene searching for something.
Eventually a waiter came out to serve us and he seemed pretty nice. HOWEVER, like many other reviews, the service was extremely slow. Ranging from getting someone to help out, to food being pushed out from the kitchen.
I ordered a corned beef hash with eggs and hashbrown. The corned beef hash tasted like it came out of a can, nothing special. I got sunny side eggs and they were a bit over fried. As for my hash brown, it’s definitely overcooked and felt too starchy/​mushy for my liking. It wasn’t anything special but I suppose it wasn’t too bad either.
I would definitely not return due to its slow service. Especially if you are in a hurry!

The staff are friendly, the food is great. I love coming here because of their great selections of omelets and the crab and avocado benedict, though the hot chocolate taste like it’s water down, also, the place could use some updating. Chairs are so worn out.

This never gets old. The diner doesn’t look like much when you walk in, and they’re usually so busy and so understaffed that it’s pretty slow service, but they make up for it with the delicious food. You open the menu and you’re overwhelmed with the amount of options. Omelets with everything you could ever imagine, but they also have other options too. Good waffles, great eggs bene, the coffee is decent diner coffee. Our waitresses have always been friendly, and apologetic with how busy they are.
Giving it five stars for the food alone. Took my out of town family there on Friday for breakfast, and my aunt talked about her delicious omelet all weekend.

The Star is for the two hostesses working that morning. They were friendly, pleasant, and apologized for the lousy food and service that my daughter and I received Saturday morning May 30^th.
We ordered scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. Pretty easy, right? One would think, unless you like cold eggs and no toast (the bacon was tasty). When the toast came after my reminder, it was cold, dry, and without butter. When, after asking for butter, I started to put it on the toast, the toast had some kind of gunk on the bottom and appeared to have had a bite taken out of it already. Now I understand this can be explained away but for me, as the diner, it left me grossed out.
Lastly, to top it off, the waiter didn’t even try to act like he cared one bit about my dissatisfaction with the food and the service. $ 20 for a bad meal and service. I’ve been to Deans several times in the past and never really walked away delighted. This time there is no going back.

This is the first time I’ve been to this place for breakfast. The service was slow and it was very outdated. The good wasn’t much to talk about. The biscuit was too dance and the linguisa was overlooked. Maybe will try one more time

Just okay breakfast food. Had the smokies with mushroom omelet and it was good but not memorable. Service is fine and waitress was fun. Food took kinda long to get but we weren’t in a hurry so it didn’t matter. I didn’t see eggs Benedict on the menu which is my typical go to breakfast dish.

Pretty mediocre and disappointing for what appears to be a popular local hangout. Now, I’d come here knowing full well the vegan options were very limited — fruit, toast no butter and hash browns, although given the very extensive menu they really could have done something else. (Amy Z had wanted to try the omelet).
The food took a bit longer than I would have expected to come. The food it was OK, but just nothing special.
Next time I’m going elsewhere, even if the menu is just as limited. The vegan breakfast places in Oakland are way better.

As I’ve alluded in other reviews, I tend to build up lofty expectations. Deans had me hook and chain with its omelet menu. Amy Z likes her omelets from time to time.
We returned last weekend so that I could scope it out.
As I expected, pretty busy for a mid-​morning on a Sunday. We ended up waiting for about 10 min before we were seated.
I opted for the Denver (I know boring!) and it was a bit of a letdown. Took awhile for the food to arrive and it was definitely closer to room temp VS searing hot. Also, was disappointed that the ham was basically cut up deli style ham rather than chunks. Considering the menu (salami, mortadella) this shouldn’t have surprised me.
Prices are ok. It’s a ton of food. I guess I would recommend to locals but not worthy of a 20 mile drive.

The servings are huge and the restaurant has a very simple cozy feel.
Unfortunately the food took a while to come out and was barely warm. I got the country fried steak and eggs and the strawberry waffles. I probably enjoyed the waffles more because the my meaty dish had cooled down too quickly.
It’s a nice old neighborhood and it seemed full with long time patrons but I’ve just had better at brunch places back home.