Updated July 2023.
The article ‘Stop at Peggy Sue's 50's Diner on a road trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas’ tells you about a visit to Peggy Sue’s Diner in Yermo, an ideal place to visit on a stop on a road trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. You find info about the atmosphere, food, distances, drive times, and general information about Peggy Sue’s 50's Diner.
Why stop at Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner
Don’t call this kitsch too soon. I start my 430-kilometre (270 miles) journey by car from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. After an easy drive of 196 kilometres, I find a diner that looks like straight from a Hollywood film. If James Dean would have come up to take my order, I wouldn’t even have been surprised really. How did I end up here? I see these massive letters on an old lorry from the freeway and spontaneously decide it would be great to stop at a roadside diner in the middle of, and this is a fact, nowhere.
The Mojave Freeway and the caramel-red Calico Mountain range
From the parking space where one could as well easily park an Airbus A 380, I can see the cars driving past in front of the caramel-brown-red Calico Mountain range. The whole scenery gets even more bizarre when there approach army tanks directly opposite and over the Mojave Freeway, next to a street called Ghost Town Road. They must surely be part of a drill manoeuvre or something. I step out of the blazing heat and into the diner through an entrance that looks like a giant pastel-coloured jukebox. Was this Marilyn Monroe? No.
Eat a Sheriff John at Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner
This place is indeed so packed with all sorts of paraphernalia that I can hardly concentrate on the menu I have been given by the lovely waitress. She is dressed in a turquoise apron with pink fringes and a matching cotton bonnet holding back her hair. There is a huge choice of salads, soups, fries, burgers, milkshakes, and I decide to eat a Sheriff John (not the Sheriff John) and drink a mug of coffee, which gets refilled every time I finish it. We are in the US, what do you expect other than coffee on tap? Peggy Sue's is an original roadside diner, built in 1954 from railroad ties and mortar from the nearby Union Pacific Rail yard. The owners, who are from Southern California took good care to keep the diner in its original state before they re-opened it in 1987. Everything you see in the diner stems from their collection of movie and TV memorabilia.
After what feels like four or five cups of coffee later Sheriff John (the cheese sandwich) arrives. I make myself comfy in the booth, keep on admiring the lavish décor, and knock down at least another three cups of coffee. I eat to the beat, as first advised at the entrance, and again on one of the wooden boards in the dining room.
Meet Elvis, Cleopatra, Betty Boop, the Blues Brothers
While at first, the coffee refill felt a bit overwhelming, I am forced to drink about eight cups of that filtered brew, I am now delighted as it makes me go to the bathroom. And on my way there, I pass another two rooms and they are exactly as packed with kitsch as the one where I enjoyed the unchecked, sumptuous feast of coffee and Sheriff John. The joy is in the journey and not in the destination. This holds true once more. I pass a room with a black chequered and one with a red chequered floor. And there is Elvis, Cleopatra, Betty Boop, the Blues Brothers, and several others feasting on coffee and sandwiches.
Before I pay, I check out the cute little gift shop at Peggy Sue's Diner that sells souvenirs, ice cream, sundaes, floats, and sandwiches.
Drive from Peggy Sue’s Diner to Las Vegas
I step out of Peggy Sue’s and back into the blazing heat. It is boiling. As I jump into my rental car, I decide to test the brakes extensively on the gravel. There is so much space. Spinning a car in a circle is lots of fun. I drive on toward Las Vegas, where my room at Caesars Palace on Las Vegas Blvd is waiting for me. From Peggy Sue’s Diner, it is only about 230 kilometres (in miles that is 143) to Las Vegas. The drive won't take longer than two and a half hours. Driving toward Las Vegas, that again sounds kitsch. Safe travels.
Info:
Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, 35654 Yermo Rd, Yermo, CA 92398, United States. Phone:
+1 760-254-3370. Pizza Parlour +1 760-254-2222. Peggy Sue's 50's Diner is open
for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hours: Monday to Thursday 7am to 8pm. Friday
to Sunday 7am to 9pm. Parking is free.
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