Cedar Grill & Cafe

This is one of the best family restaurants out there. Everytime I come, they’re so courteous and generous, and their food is if the highest quality. Amazing!

Who would have expected fabulous food in a Shell gas station?!! This is DELICIOUS. Skip the menu on the board and go for the daily special. Homemade authentic Lebanese food that makes you want to come back for more. The owners are the sweetest couple. I was happy to discover they cater too and have started using them to deliver the most amazing food to my office for catered lunches. I can’t believe it took me so many years to go here and overcome my Shell gas station prejudice…

Ordered here for myself and my boss and coworker, chosen based on good reviews and the fact that they deliver. Delivery was super fast too!
Best decision ever! We all loved it. I had the chicken skewer plate, comes with rice, salad, pita and hummus. Excellent, fresh and perfectly cooked.
Other things we ordered: Super Combo (hot) on sourdough and Chicken Melt on sourdough. Both said they loved it. My boss kept raving about it which is great because I chose the place!
Definitely returning!!! Oh and price is unbeatable!

I love good Greek food and was so shocked with how fresh and good this place was! The gyro meat is fresh and hot as is the pita bread! I also don’t care for taziki sauce however theirs is AMAZING!!! I highly recommend coming here for great, fresh and quick food!!! Don’t let the location fool you either!

Hi, can I just tell you how much I love Fonzi? I’m assuming he owns this little corner shop with his wife (the little lady slanging out the orders)? They’re the sweetest people! I’m also all about Gas Station food. I’ve had what we called gas station tacos in Redwood City. It’s probably one of the best taco spots I’ve ever been to. So don’t knock it til you try it!
My go to here is their Gyro plate. Comes with delicious rice, salad, hummus and pita. It’s a super generous portion for under $ 8. I’ve also had their beef and potato special. It was so good! My co workers swear off their Gyro meal with fries.
This place is truly a god send for us worker bees in the plaza. They’re fast, delicious, and cheap! Parking could be a bit of a pain as it is inside the Shell Gas Station, but to be honest, I’ve never had any problems.

Really random location, but the food is delicious and cheap. Plus the woman who makes it is very sweet. Easy yummy lunch

The people are super friendly here. The man told me he preferred the gyros sandwich value meal over the plate haha. However since I was craving hummus I ended up getting the gyros plate. The gyros are heated from a frozen tub, not stripped from the rotisserie like you would see at some places, that was the biggest downside for me. I guess they don’t get enough orders of it so its understandable it has to be from frozen. They are like rectangular sausage patties. They sat on top of a bed of regular white rice (no special herbed or mediterranean rice) and a decent salad. The plate also comes with a cup of hummus and pita bread. This place was OK, just wouldn’t go here again especially with all the other food options nearby.

Omfg! The southwestern omelette is incredible. So are the hotcakes. Definitely a good spot. And conveniently next to the Solana train station. Yay!

This place has absolutely delicious food in a not so delicious location, lol. Don’t let the gas station location fool you, legit Greek cuisine can be had here. I usually don’t get all that extravagant with Greek cuisine and tend to rock the chicken dish of some sort here nearly every time I visit. Each and every dish that I have gotten has been delicious and the folks that run this place are always extremely friendly. Overall, this place is a great lunch spot or a great take out and eat at the beach type of place.
Pros–
Food
Taste
Menu
Price
Friendly service
Portions
Cons–
Inside of a gas station
Limited seating
Limited parking
Inside of a freaking gas station lol…

Wonderful Mediterranean spot located in the Shell convenience store. Don’t let that fool you. Authentic and homemade soups, pita sandwiches, salads, falafel, hummus… Tasty, generous portions and very inexpensive. The owner/​chef is super nice! Look past the menu and check out the daily specials! Superb! Highly recommend and will definitely return.

Good food, funky location. Inside of a gas station mini-​mart basically. Not sure I would be the first to run back here but I can’t say anything bad about the food or service. There are some tables tucked into the back to eat on but I would recommend planning to pick up and take away, unless you enjoy truck stop ambiance.
You can always grab some sour patch kids, energy drinks and pump gas while you wait for your order.

My first time coming here was not the best of first impressions so I decided to try it again. It was no better the second time around. My first visit they closed well before advertised hours. In fact, the person who cooks the food smiled at me as she left and laughingly said she makes her own hours. I posted a tip about this and a family member chastised me and suggested I come back.
This time I came in the afternoon just to avoid a repeat of my first visit. They are listed here on Unilocal as a Mediterranean place and the menu has many of the traditional meals you would expect from a Mediterranean place. To get a fair sampling, I got the traditional Gyro sandwich and the Mediterranean Plate with Chicken Kabobs. This comes with rice, hummus and pita bread. I placed my order and it was ready in about 5 minutes.
Start off with the Gyro sandwich. While it does have the traditional meat in a pita bread type sandwich, they chop up the tomatoes, onions and mix it with the traditional white sauce in sort of a salad that they put into the sandwich. Needless to say, this was definitely below average for a gyro sandwich.
Next was the Mediterranean plate with the chicken kabobs, rice and hummus. There are two chicken skewers but with only a few pieces of chicken. That’s not so bad except unlike most other places that serve kabobs, they don’t use the choice pieces of chicken meat. I bit into a couple of these and the chicken was not very flavorful and was very tough. Most places also marinate their chicken in a saffron type of seasoning and these were lacking of any real flavor. They advertise the rice as «cedar» which I’m not familiar with and when I looked it up, didn’t really find anything about it. Regardless, traditionally most places use basmati rice which is quite good. This rice was sort of a rice use in Spanish rice. Either was, it too was very bland and no distinct flavor. The hummus was awful. I’ve spent more than 10 years traveling throughout the Middle East and Greece and am quite familiar with ‘good’ hummus and bread. This wasn’t even fair. It really was bad. Overall, the entire meal was so bad I threw about 80% of it out.
I’m surprised at the reviews for this place. Albeit, they do have other food but the majority of the reviews I read were about the Mediterranean food. Additionally, given Marketplace Grille is just across the street and while I wouldn’t say theirs is superior Mediterranean food, it is far better than this and walking distance from this restaurant. If you can drive about a mile, there is Taverna Blu which I’m not necessarily a big fan of, but they are better than this place. Drive out on the 56 east a couple of miles and you’ll come across Luna Grill which although a chain type restaurant, is pretty good and far better gyro sandwich and kabobs. Lastly, if you are really looking for the best, just drive up to Del Mar Heights and try Alborz. Without question far better gyro sandwich and when it comes to chicken kabob’s, there is none better.
Lastly, they use styrofoam for their to-​go containers and this is a big ‘NO’ in my opinion. You cannot recycle styrofoam in San Diego County regardless of what the markings may be on the container. There are businesses right here in San Diego that sell recyclable to-​go containers and I’ve priced it out myself and at most, it might cost the business an extra 15 cents per container which naturally you can pass along to the customer with a minor rise in price. But mark these words, it won’t be long before styrofoam single use to-​go containers are banned here in San Diego. New York City initiated their ban this January and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this on the ballot for 2016. Why wait… get onboard with it now.
Lastly, a family member of this business wrote after my last posting. Please don’t bother harassing me again. This is my opinion and I stick by it. I’ve traveled the world and have frequented many of San Diego restaurants and I know what good food is.

Great food in a funny location. The food here is such a great departure from what’s around. Not all the food is amazing but 75% of it is. The chicken kabobs are sublime, especially over salad. I tried the tabbouleh and it’s just way to saturated with olive oil and looks old in the deli case. I make tabbouleh at home and understand the work that goes into it. I would recommend to the owners to add the olive oil (½ dose) and liven it up with a squirt of lemon juice just before serving. Doing that will retain that bright green color parsley is known for and make for a better, fresher, tastier salad. So overall a great place but a bit heavy on the oil with some dishes.
This place is inside a gas station but should be a stand alone restaurant. Smart of the owners because I assume the overhead isn’t so high.
Those that believe in the Mediterranean diet or just love tasty food should stop by!

I used this company for a last minute catering job for 25 people. I am tired of the same old sandwiches and pizza/​salad. The caterer called me back immediately and made menu suggestions that weren’t on the menu since we had a few vegans in the mix.
The food was outstanding. Everyone was so happy with the selection. Hummus and other dips, an eggplant dish, assorted kabobs were amazing, salads, pita/​chips, dolma, rice and red velvet cookies (thrown in free, I think). I will be using them again. Very good food. Reasonable prices. On time and responsive to our needs! Excellent caterer!

It was pretty good! I didn’t realize when I quickly checked Unilocal,but this place is a gas station rest stop. That’s not a problem or anything, but it definitely didn’t strike me as the most healthy of food.
Turned out to be as good as advertised! All the food was made by one poor beleaguered woman was extremely helpful but definitely overworked. I don’t know if it’s always just her, but it seemed like a tough day at the office.
My fiancé and I got two gyros and a side of hummus. Delicious and a generous portion of hummus! Maybe could have done with more pita bread actually to go with it, but worth the money for sure.
4/​5, would recommend!

This place is far from «fancy», especially in Del Mar, but the food is deeeelish. My co-​workers order from here quite often since they’re conveniently located and have free delivery with a $ 7.50 minimum purchase.
Like other reviewers stated, this restaurant is located right inside the Shell gas station/​car wash mini-​mart. If you’ve ever taken road trips across states, you’ve seen something like this before. This however, is no oddity that will lead to a stomach ache later. I’ve become a big fan of Greek food over the years, and they’ve definitely got it going on at Cedar Grill. They have a small and tight (not as in cool) indoor seating area with outdoor seating bistro furniture, but like I said nothing fancy. I did dine in, but I personally prefer a hard flat surface that doesn’t risk my fork falling through the table ha. I’m likely to order or take it to go next time.
I ordered the feta chicken wrap because everything’s better with feta… and it was for $ 7.50! I didn’t think I’d finish it because of its size, oh, but I did without a problem. My my my… I tasted every ingredient, really. It was so light, fresh and full of flavor! Good lookin’ out Cedar Grill! I’ll be back. I think I’m becoming a wrapper y’all. Respect my gangsta…

Food is freshly made and a great healthy choice. I can see why so many Scripps Health employees are popping in for lunch.
I ordered a regular gyros that comes with fries. It was good– nice serving size and good balance of meat and sauce. The fries were just ok. Personally, I like my fries on the thinner side and very crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. These were thick cut cringle fries that were hot but seemed like they were not fresh out of the fryer. I noticed a lot of people ordering the daily special, so if I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll try it next time.

I went to a catered meeting and was shocked – floored – that the food was from Cedar Grill. I think this is the beginning of a great love affair.
The salads were fresh and flavorful. That baked chicken… sigh. AND THE BAKLAVA. I die. I die inside from all the years I didn’t know about Cedar Grill.

First time having a gyro and it was DELICIOUS! My dad had the kafta with salad which tasted delightful as well. Although it is a bit odd that it is located within a gas station, the food is FAR from the typical hotdog and microwaveable burrito.
I’m visiting San Diego with my dad. A couple days ago, he had mediterranean food from The Marketplace Grill in the plaza across the street and he wasn’t much of a fan of the food AND the price. His chicken plate there was about $ 18, whereas a plate here would be less than half that price with much better quality and taste.
Good eats doesn’t always have to be at a fancy shmancy place.

I haven’t had much Middle Eastern or Greek food in my life, but I have to say, I liked the chicken pita. I didn’t realize it came with pickles, so that was a little disappointment.
I work close by, so I’ll probably be back to try it again :)
The chicken pita w/​salad and a drink was just about the right about of food for a lunch time meal!