The Dala Horse

I’m new to Kingsburg and was looking for a good breakfast place. My friends were visiting from my old home town and I was a bit nervous, but we all LOVED our food! Generous servings, potatoes were cooked perfectly as were the eggs and bacon. Pancakes were fluffy and yummy! The Swedish pancakes were great too!

Food was delicious. Service was, very slow… When we arrived the quaint restaurant was full of patrons who gave you the look down as if you had walked into their living room. We took one of only two tables open, in the sun. The long haul wait didn’t set in till after we ordered breakfast and received our drinks. We finished our drinks, restaurant is mostly empty now, we move ourselves to a table out of the sun that has been cleared. It has been at least 45 minutes. Suddenly we get our FIRST plate. Side biscuit with gravy. Swedish pancake for my husband. We order a refill on our first drinks (coffee & milk) We get started eating and about 5 minutes later my eggs and bacon shows up. Then a minute or so later my husbands egg and bacon show up. When I am finished eating my biscuit and my husband has finished his pancake, the waiter clears those plates and delivers my French toast. Finally about 15 minutes after receiving our first plates, my husband gets his last plate, his potatoes. And I we’ve already eaten most our food when they show up… As I said, everyday was delicious… But we had to give up a few hours for it…
My solution: they sell pancake mix at the restaurant for their pancakes… I buy lingonberries at the local supermarket… Boom… Recreated at home without the crazy wait.

If you’re planning on coming to this place make sure you have a lot of time because there’s only one little old lady who is the cook and takes her time so make sure you have good company and conversation. We had the Swedish pancakes and eggs which was really very good I’m not sure what Swedish pancakes are supposed to look and taste like but these were delicious. Be sure to ask for a menu because what’s posted on the wall is an old menu so we were told. The waiter is very pleasent. This quaint café does need a makeover.

Our first time here and we were really impressed… Excellent breakfast. The Swedish pancakes are amazing! And the wait staff are friendly, fast, and very helpful! I definitely recommend checking this place out!

Best breakfasts I’ve ever had besides my Moms and their lunches are incredible. Always very satisfied with my meal

Great attentive staff. Nice potato sausage, Swedish meatball, homemade potato salad, rice pudding platter with lingonberry. Absolutely delicious.

Cute, quaint restaurant. We had Swedish pancakes, Swedish waffles & regular pancakes. The regular pancakes were huge and yummy. Waffles were good but not spectacular & the Swedish pancakes were good– like crepes but without all the good stuff you can usually get in crepes. Next time we visit we will try the oatmeal pancakes– those looked so good.

Passing through Kingsburg and stopped in for lunch. Swedish pancakes were delicious and the service was wonderful. If you’re in a hurry, it might not be the best choice, but if you’re looking for hometown USA with a Swedish flare this is the spot.

This is a pretty good place for a small town. The Swedish pancakes are awesome ! The downside is the service is pretty bad and slow. But that is what you get in small towns.

Well, let’s jump right on to the Dala Horse.
8 min wait time for a menu after sitting. Kinda sucks. Maybe they can smell the Visalia on us, and are a bit opposed to non local service, maybe they are just working hard and didn’t notice us. Either way, 8 min wait time is a long wait for any crusader just wanting to observe the possibility of what to eat. I’m probably going to take 8 min just to choose any way. That puts us at a 16 min wait before my order is even up. Next, the menu has messages all over warning that preparation for the food is lengthy. Dang. Another 20 min at least huh? Puts us at 36 min before any food reaches my table. And it’s not necessarily busy right now either. There is a bit of harsh looks from locals, but that’s out of their hands, so I won’t go into that. But it can add a certain Unease for the common traveler passing through. Aesthetically, the establishment itself is like a Dala Horse. Aged, and symbolic. The walls have a soothing feel to put the visitor back at ease. So if you’re going wait, at least your in a «grandmothers house feel» to put you at peace for the long, sitting journey. It’s understandable why the people look as aged as the place. They sat in here for the majority of their youth. It’s more of a time machine bringing you back to the simplicity of what used to be. I feel bad writing a review on an iPhone in here, if I’m being totally honest. It’s a place that needs appreciation, luckily, I’m sure I’ll have quite a bit more time after the fact. The waitress did a pretty good job at making us feel a bit more welcomed than originally entering, or at least me. If I was judging it off the food and drink alone, 4 stars, but bringing in this aspect is important. Food is awesome, if you can sacrifice a few years. It’s up to you if the finish line is worth the marathon.

The best pancakes ever! The French toast is pretty awesome too. This is a great mom and pop shop. The wait time for food can be a little long but it’s totally worth the wait. Patience is a virtue.

We got there for breat fast and wait for 1:45min .
We want to talk to the owner and he say if food wasn’t the good we don’t have to pay and never comeback. We think the was rude

Perhaps the worst service I’ve ever had the displeasure of experiencing.
The waitress took forever to get to our table (half an hour), gave me my food cold, and substituted so many thing in my dad’s order it was barely the same by the end. We were there for a total of two hours, and ate in less than fifteen. All the rest was waiting. We saw /​other/​people getting service for more people. It was so bizarre.
TL;DR — Not worth the enormous wait or subpar food/​staff.

Local hotels need to know about this place! Apparently one of the last remaining that attempts to serve Swedish food in the whole Swedish themed town. The hotel tried to send me to Denny’s!
Very dated, and not in the charming way, but don’t let that deter you. Simple food, simple prices, simple service. No bells or whistles. Just good. Very difficult to find anymore.

I love this place. Same owners and employees for years, which says a lot.
If you are in a rush and used to Starbucks type quick service don’t go. If you want a kind, home town, local feel with great food you should go.
Viking breakfast is off the charts with Swedish pancakes providing the main treat.
Biggest advice is … Don’t be in a rush as a small business one can only employ so many waitresses etc just enjoy everything about this small town gem.
Brent johnson

The French toast is delicious — huge pieces cooked perfectly with a crisp finish & airy center. I’m still not a fan of the décor & the waitstaff, while sweet & polite, aren’t quick with a coffee refill. It does take a little extra time for the kitchen to prepare food compared to other breakfast places, but the food was well worth waiting for today.

I hadn’t been to Dala Horse since lunchtime high school trips… too long ago. On a recent visit, someone suggested I try the oatmeal pancakes. The sound didn’t intrigue me all that much, but I was on a mission for my «go-​to» dish here. I’m not a huge fan of the eggs/​potatoes dishes so I was hoping for a new fav. Well folks, Oatmeal Pancakes won! I order them with lingonberries only, but some people may need syrup too. They are large, so be ready. Service is always friendly. It’s the kind of place you sit back and enjoy rather than expect a rushed on-​the-​go meal.

Driving the 99? Never eat fast food? Don’t even consider fast food as food? Pull off at Kingsburg and head to K-Burg’s main street, Draper St.
If it’s a Sunday like when we were there last expect a sleepy street with hardly a business open… but luckily Dala Horse is open. You might walk in and awkwardly be met by no one. Maybe someone will see you from behind the counter and tell you to take a seat, any seat. Chances are the place is more than half empty on a Sunday. Service is odd, perfunctory, stilted. Nice enough, though. I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie, every thing seems just a little out of sync in this quiet hushed place. Maybe that’s just the way it always is on a Sunday.
Order the Viking Breakfast.
You get a choice of meat, nothing special.
You get a choice of eggs, nothing special.
You will also get Swedish Pancakes with a mini portion of Lingon Berry jam and any oddball anxiety you may have been experiencing about this place will fade away in a mouthful. Yeahhhhhhh! That is one fine tasty treat… swedish pancakes, kinda like semi-​sweet crepes with out the filling spread flat on your plate… delicately paint your pancake with some precious lingon berry jam and try to make that jam last for both pancakes. Man, they are stingy with that delicious jam. Oh well, maybe too much of a good thing is bad for ya.
Except for the fact that a place like Solvang is of Danish roots and a place like Kingsburg is of Swedish roots… while you wait for the amateur but nice enough staff to give you your check, you’ll probably have time to wonder… what the hell is a little piece of Solvang doing way out here in the middle of Highway 99 country?
Zero stars for everything. Infinity stars for those damn pancakes. Averages out to four stars. I’m going back there for sure next time I’m passing through.

Service was waaay too slow, the viking breakfast was smaller than a kids meal and the Swedish pancakes were swimming in oil. my potatoes had been in the deep frier for so long they were inedible and my English muffin was burnt. We waited for 45 minutes for that long of a wait you would expect some quality coming your way but we were sadly mistaken. For a town that boasts Swedish themes to allow their main Swedish restaurant to treat their customers in such a way is a travesty.
My husband and I wasted 30 dollars on a meal that i would have tossed if i had mistakenly made it at home. WE WILL NOT RETURN
The waitress is sweet and accommodating but the aged cook has to retire.

Ah, Melanie D… you are so very wrong. We got to Dala Horse at 10 am on a Sunday when there were only two other tables occupied, and it still took us half an hour to get our 3 breakfasts (oatmeal pancakes, eggs and breakfast potatoes, and a bowl of oatmeal). One can only conclude that lack of «crowds» doesn’t matter a whit.
I will concede, though, that the food was very good; hot, fresh, and seemingly made to order. Our server seemed to think the oatmeal pancakes would be better than the Swedish pancakes, so that’s what I ordered. Yes, they were hearty and delicious –and very large. The breakfast potatoes were also very good and fried to just the right crispness. It does pay to ask for the server’s opinion about the food ;).
Dala Horse is a small café boasting typical «hometown-​dingy» charm, aka Tacky/​Cute. It seems clean and the restroom was passable. Our food was better than Denny’s equivalent breakfasts. I liked the laid-​back main street it is located on, so I would stop by again on a future trip up the 99 when we weren’t so pressed for time; it might be fun to explore the little Swedish shops nearby.