Cafe 126

This is one of the best places to eat at in Ventura, not only is the food great but the staff is Awesome. The food comes out quick, hot and just like home cooked meals. I would highly recommend every one give it a try. The pricing is great for the amount of food you get. Forget the big restaurant chains Café 126 is the best. Try it and you’ll love it.

First timer today. Service was great. Coffee was hot and filled regularly. Generous portions. The steak was done perfectly, although a little sinuey, but as to be expected at a breakfast place. Nice little local breakfast joint.

I miss all the amazing memories of Café 126! such a gem with extremely amazing breakfast burritos. I would recommend it to anyone passing through Ventura. the only downfall is sometimes there can be a wait!

Alice, er… I mean Rachel. I (respectfully!) agree and disagree with your review. Another place I want to love, but can’t. Waited over 10 min. before a half cup of real warm coffee arrived and menus wordlessly flung down. Ice cold toast with the token yellow blob in the middle. Food far from hot, server as pleasant and hard to summon as the morning dew, never once returned to check up on us. Buddy’s biscuit and gravy arrived chilled and after the meal was finished. Credit card never made it back to the table, None of which is ever acknowledged by the server. Other times the food is good (but sadly, rarely the service.) they’re always as nice as they can be, and you can’t deny the view of asphalt, strip mall and gas station. Don’t know why we keep going back, perplexing actually. Very average. Now, Rachel, about those points…

A crowded noisy restaurant. But there is no other place to eat in East Ventura. Recently, I found myself there. If you want to see Ventura blue collar denizens, come here for the tattoos, loud customers and chaos. The food is very poor, and often greasy. The coffee is bad, the sandwiches are old and odd tasting and breakfast is below average. The place is small and the wait staff are overwhelmed. Stay away for sanity’s sake.

Love, love, love this place and everyone who works here. Both locations are good but my go to is the one on Citrus and Wells Rd. I have been a loyal customer for 15 years now! Everything on the menu is good, we are talking comfort food, home cooking, mama’s in the kitchen good!

Had a garden or farmers omelet (Can’t remember the name) with hash browns and toast.
While no complaints on portion size, the egg tasted very bland and the hash browns also were without flavor. All which made the big portion sizes mad because who wants to eat flavorless food. My friend got pancakes and also since they had no flavor he only ate the half. No service after food arrived.

We went on Sunday morning and won’t be going back. Had really bad service, food was very inconsistent from last time, and we were uncharged without warning or resolve when we brought it up. It’s a shame because it’s walking distance from our house, but after that experience, no thank you.

Disappointing to say the least. It was just a run-​of-​the-​mill Denny’s style Americana breakfast. Tea selection was Farmer Brothers crapola. Everything was just the smart and final stuff with no attention to originality. No chai, no upscale coffee, and fake lemonade made from high fructose corn syrup. Pancakes came complete with fake «maple» syrup and the country potatoes forgot the «country» bit. They were just potatoes and paprika. No onions and bell peppers like country potatoes should be. Service was good. Just the food sucked. It wouldn’t take much for a place like this to get some class but I’m not holding out hope in that.
Places like this will keep Americans obese and dumbed down to real food.
I will not return.

This place is a hidden gem… Breakfast and lunch are both great. Tortilla soup is delicious and there fruits and veggies they use are top quality. prices are reasonable As well.

Great eggs Benedict, I could not believe the size of the portion when the plate came to the table.
Definitely suggested for breakfast and the prices are definitely in the right range.
Service was kind and quick for the amount of customers at the time.
Will go there again for sure

«There’s a new girl in town, with a brand new style. She was just passing through, but if things work out she’s gonna stay awhile…»
Café 126 is reminiscent to truck stop diners, located near a gas station, dry cleaner and post office it has that small town feel for those passing through, & the comforting familiarity to those who reside in the vicinity.
Outdoor seating consists of rod iron tables & chairs that would be a welcome place to eat on a sunny day.
Upon entering the restaurant, you cannot help thinking that if the walls could talk the stories they could tell.
The main diner is compact, but not to worry there is another room through the doorway with plenty of seating.
We were greeted right away, there were two parties ahead of us, but we were seated within 5 minutes.
Our waitress was a sweetheart, and checked on us often.
I ordered the Mexican scramble which was two eggs, bell peppers & onions, with a side of O’Brien Potatoes, and opted instead of toast to get the biscuits & gravy.
Did I like my meal? Well, let me put it this way… My plate was clean.
The biscuit was huge and fluffy, but the gravy lacked seasoning so I didn’t end up eating it, which my waistline is thanking me for.
Wouldn’t hesitate to go back.
PS: for those questioning my review intro… Points for those that figure it out. :)

Look at the pictures I uploaded of the BURNED hamburger and the OLD LETTUCE, that’s what they look like every single time I come here.
Have been here more than a few times because my mother lives nearby so she usually asks me to get stuff from here when I go visit her.
I have found paper in my hamburger meat at least twice. The hamburger itself looks like it was 3 days old and thawed from a package that you would get at WalMart, that means it doesn’t look, smell, or taste anything like a burger, but like plastic.
Look at my pictures and see the cheese, if it looks hard and opaque it’s because it was. The cheese melted and when I tried to pick up up it broke into little pieces.

as one of the previous Unilocal said, everyone’s got their own standards and although the person who said didn’t have much kind things to say (what do you expect from an ‘elite’ Unilocaler? LOL what a joke) this place is phenomenal. I have been coming here at least once a month for the past 5 years and I have never had a bad meal or experience. it seems people these days like to point out everything wrong just so their Unilocal can seem a little more interesting. (sorry there aren’t enough bathrooms for you. maybe open your own restaurant with more?) anyways. this place is fantastic and their chicken fried steak is out of this world.

Food was served cold. Server never came to check on me. Food was undercooked bland. I ordered the chicken fried steak it was so greasy and gross. The potatoes were old like they had been sitting had only one spice paprika. I went against my better judgement and tried this place out bummer I always like a diner. Avoid.

You really can’t do wrong with this place. The breakfast is amazing the food is great. It’s all just wonderful. The waitresses are awesome. This last time I stopped in we got sat at the table by the door and these people with no common courtesy stood there with their butts in our faces and our waitress saw that and told them very nicely excuse her and they moved. She saw that and came right over and got them to move. Such awesome ladies! Thank you again for a great breakfast!

So my first new breakfast adventure of 2016 was not a success. I’d heard good things about this place but of course everyone has their own standards.
I had Beth’s scramble and it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. In my opinion, it was the potatoes, which come covered in something red, that really held this plate back. My wife wasn’t a fan of the potatoes either but she had bigger problems. Her turkey bacon and egg were both over cooked and her toast was visibly under toasted/​soggy. On the positive side, my daughter’s pancakes, eggs and bacon were solid and the other one had steak and eggs, which was good as well. In the end it was the atmosphere that dropped Café 126 from a 3 star to a 2 star.
While eating we had to literally listen to several back and forth spats between the wait staff and the cooking staff. Someone ordered the California omelette and wasn’t informed that there wasn’t any avocado until their meal arrived (the wait staff was asking the chef why he didn’t say something immediately.) Another person was ordering food «to go» and wanted his eggs, biscuits and other items equally distributed between 4 containers since he was ordering for 4 people. As the wait staff relayed this info to the chef, the chef must’ve been annoyed because I heard the wait staff apologize 2 to 3 times. It wasn’t my order, but if it was, I don’t want to know that the cook is pissed about my relatively simple request. Honestly just cook my food and smile or get another job. There were several other instances I could cover but you get the point. I should mention that our waitress was pleasant and not an issue.
As an additional side note: There’s only one bathroom, which had a line 5 deep at one point. Luckily I only wanted to wash my hands but in other circumstances this could have been a much bigger problem.
Try it or Diet Final Word
I’d have to say diet. If your traveling, grab something quick at Jack in the Box and be on your way. If your from the area, there are too many other better options nearby, skip it.

I went to Café 126 around 1. My boyfriend and I were sat down right away. I ordered the French dip, the beef was so dry it NEEDED the au jus sauce. The flavor was very good though and the sauce was not too salty. My boyfriend got the oven roasted turkey sandwich. I had a bite and it was very good. Very fresh and the flavor was also good. Their fries are also really good.
The service is only OK. Our waitress was very friendly and always had a smile on her face. She brought our food in a timely manner. But there was one other waitress that rudely kept bumping into the back of my side of the booth every time she walked by. It was annoying and just so rude, she didn’t even apologize.
Other than that it was a good time. The atmosphere was nice and had a good buzz of chatter. Its a small place with a really good menu and feel.

Haven’t been there In a long time so I met a friend there and it was ok. I had the country breakfast which is biscuits and gravy with sausage and hash browns. The sausage was good and the eggs cooked they way I asked but the biscuit was more like a roll and not a biscuit. The gravy wasn’t anything special. My friend had the all meat omelette and he said it was good. The breakfast wasn’t bad it just wasn’t anything special.

You’ll have to live with a ramble before I hit the review.
The universe embraced Ventura County, gave it a giant kiss and blessed it with a miraculous climate, excellent soil, pretty good water and lots of oil. This time of year the avocados are fat, ripe and tree-​ripened sweet, the morning fog saturates the air with moisture carrying the sweetness of lemon flowers and jasmine for miles.
Mornings like this bring memories of the red-​headed, honey-​lipped American colleen who swore me to a pact of discretion; the wonderful Mary who wanted to wed in the wake of family tragedy; Cathy the fine. Bill and Pris return, D&N, Randy, Danny, Timmy, Robert and globe-​trotting Jim all come to mind. I couldn’t leave Ventura County quick enough, but still have ties.
Café 126 is a place you can too can embrace Ventura’s bounty. I had the vegetarian farmers omelette with home fries, biscuits and gravy and Café 126 Pico de gallo. Coffee too.
The coffee was perfect to me, maybe not for someone of your sophistication. The potatoes may have been from Idaho, the biscuit and gravy wheat from Washington, but the spinach, tomato, onion and egg were all Ventura County. A delicious, mild flavored, veggie-​packed breakfast firing my personal cylinders to move me down the road again.
Opens at 6 A.M. I’ll be back.