Dina's Family Restaurant
Category: Restaurants [Edit]
40800 Fremont Blvd(between Chapel Way & Papazian Way)
Fremont, CA 94538 (510) 770-1930
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
22 reviews
Union City, CA
"I'd also give this place a 4.5. The food was delicious and beautifully presented. We ordered the chicken soup (tinola), garlic shrimp,…" read more »
14 Reviews for Dina's Family Restaurant
Ok I'm going to start off by saying my favorite thing at Dina's is their Italian Burger! OMG It's to die for! Now that we have that out of the way, all you omlette lovers, you have got to try any of them, they are all soooooooo good!They have a wide variety of food there, which I love because they have something for everyone! My family has been going to this place for a long time, and all my friends love it too! They ALWAYS have fast and friendly service! My kids even love this place! We don't always get to go out for breakfast, but when we do Dina's is always our first choice! For some reason it has always reminded me of sitting with my grandparents (who are dead now) eating a nice breakfast and just talking about life! I support the family buisness aspect they have there at Dina's! And did I even mention dinner yet! They have all you could ask for in a dinner menu! I have never ordered anything there that I wasn't COMPLETELY satisfied with! Dina's is my family's first choice ALWAYS!
Ps. By the way, my dad won't eat anywhere else,lol!
The Fiance and I were in the area and looking for a spot to have breakfast. I've been passing here for a long time and heard that this place just came under new management and we decided to stop inside for breakfast.
Dina's what you expect from a family restaurant, it has that kind of homey feel to it without being overwhelming. The place was clean and bright and we were shown our table right away. The hostess asked us for our drink order and I got the fresh orange juice and the fiance got the coffee.
We started to look over the menu and Dina's offers all of your traditional diner options. Breakfast here is pretty basic with all your standard egg, omelets, pancakes, and waffles. Prices here are pretty good. They do have 2 egg specials that will run you under $5 and most menu items for breakfast are in the $6 - $9 range. Very reasonably priced breakfast.
The fiance and I looked over the menu and we decided to split the Greek Omelet, have an order of fruit instead of potatoes, and I got a side order of the Country Sausage. We chatted for a bit and had some OJ. Damn... that was really really good OJ. This is exactly how fresh OJ should taste like. The Fiance thought the coffee was ok, but she thought my OJ was excellent.
We chatted for a bit more and then got our food. This was a pretty good size omelet and was packed with things such as cheese, peppers, and onions. The waitress also suggested some of their fresh made salsa and we said yes. The fresh made salsa was just that, fresh and had a nice spicy bite to it but tasted very very good. It went extremely well with the omelet. The fruit was also fresh and tasted very good. The country sausage was good. They get bonus points for it not being greasy. Portion size on all the food was generous. More than enough to feed two.
Overall, we had a really good breakfast here. The only negatives I have to say is that the parking situation is weird. You either have to park on the streets or in the back parking lot. Service here was friendly and fast and we ended up paying about $21 including tip for breakfast. Plenty of food all of it tasted fresh. Dina's Family Restaurant is 3.5 stars, but for Yelp purposes they get 4 stars. Definitely worth a consideration if you're in the Irvington District of Fremont and looking for breakfast.
2.5
My boyfriend and I try to stay clear from chain restaurants, because we're all about supporting mom-n-pop/small businesses, so when we drove by this place and noticed "Family Restaurant" in their name, we surely could NOT resist.
It was a Sunday morning and this place was surprisingly PACKED! - In exception to one table, which we were able to snatch. Oh, lucky us :o) Seeing that so many people were here, we couldn't help but have high expectations, which may have contributed to this slightly pitiful rating.
They have CARPET! A pet-peeve of mine when it comes to restaurants, because it tends to easily stain and pick up more dirt than hard floors. Eck. Very grubby looking.
Our waitress was extremely rushy when taking our orders and did not crack the slightest smile (I'm a sucker for smiles). She was obviously flustered from all the customers she was serving, so I sympathized. Nevertheless, she was very prompt and that's always a good thing, especially on busy days like those.
The food was nothing more than mediocre. I ordered the Daniel's sandwich (blackened chicken, avocado, swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato) which HONEST TO GOD tasted like something I could've made with Costco products (97% certain that the bread was from there), but it wasn't bad. My boyfriend had a burger steak topped with gravy and mushrooms, along with spaghetti and chilli on the side. He claimed to be satisfied, but when I snuck a bite, I instantly felt a gag reflex... but that was probably due to my indifference to red meat.
My favorite part of this restaurant was the guy (alternately handling pitchers of water, iced tea and coffee) who constantly walked around all the tables making that sure every glass was full. He was sooo friendly, smiled A LOT (Finally, a smile in this place) and had a REALLLLLY high-pitched voice... higher pitched than any other fake-baby-voiced girl I've ever encountered. It was quite amusing, actually. My boyfriend could not refrain from laughing whenever he came our way, but I thought it was kind of cute :o)
So, if you like mediocre food for reasonable prices AND want to support small family restaurants, then give this place a try!
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Sad, because the people are nice and the guys who started this restaurant were former bus boys at Baldie's (Union City).
If anything, we go for breakfast.....rarely. Any other meal of the day is greasy, overcooked, just not ok.
Last few times I was there, it didn't look that clean either, which creeps me out because I have a kid and you know they touch EVERYTHING.
It is too bad because they are in our neighborhood and it would be nice to go there more often and have it be our "Cheers"/
While looking for the BBQ place across the street we found that it was closed on Monday's. This place looked kinda old school so my co-worker and I headed over. Diner food with breakfast served a good amount of the day was promising. I got the chicken fried steak with scalloped potatoes and my co-worker got the grilled chicken sandwich with avocado and cheese.
The service was pretty friendly and the wait staff refilled my iced tea several times. We both felt however that the food was just ok. It wasn't bad but nothing to get excited about either. I figure this might be a better place for common things like bacon and eggs and other simple diner food. Probably a better bet than say Denny's but not by much.
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Had dinner here tonight. I ordered the fish and chips. They started dinner with bread. The sliced sourdough roll was cold. They did not warm it up before serving. Dinner came with either soup or salad. I chose the clam chowder soup. It was very mediocre in quality. Not at all the caliber of home made soup. Rating: 2 stars out of 5.
The fish and chips arrived quite fast. The fish was a bit overcooked. It arrived with a horseradish-tasting sauce. Tasted quite awful with the fish and chips. I asked for tartar sauce. It was pretty much the worst tartar sauce I'd ever tasted. So I asked for mayonnaise and some lemon as they did not include lemon with the entree. The waitress gave me 1 tiny piece of lemon for 3 pieces of fish. Needless to say, there wasn't enough to go around for the pieces of fish. The mixed vegetables that were on the plate was way overcooked. The carrots were completely soft and had no texture. The broccoli was soagy. I didn't finish my meal. Rating: 0.5 stars out of 5.
My wife ordered the chicken fried steak. It was doused with so much gravy and the chicken fried steak itself was a small helping. She said it tasted like frozen fried steak. Her meal came with the same mixed vegetables as mine. Her comments were the same as mine about the quality of the veggies. Rating: 0.5 stars out of 5.
I don't think we will be coming returning to Dina's. I can't tell you anything that was good about the meal or the visit. I kept thinking that we should have gone to Country Way Restaurant instead for their dinner entrees. We chose to try Dina's for we wanted to give it a chance. But it wasn't worth it.
Went here for breakfast because my car was getting fixed across the street. The place was packed so I was excited to see if I ran into a rough diamond. I ordered the sausage omelette.
The omelette was straight up frozen market sausage chopped with cheese and folded into some dry eggs. Blaah.
Paid 8 bucks for the worst omelette I ever had. C-ya!
We waited way too long to get into this place on a Sunday morning. I asked for my eggs over medium, which to me means that the egg whites are solid and just the yolk is runny. I got runny yolk AND runny egg whites. Ewwww! The bacon was rubbery, so I didn't eat much of that.... my husband got the biscuits and gravy, and let me tell you folks, he KNOWS good biscuits and gravy. He's from Texas. They didn't even get halfway eaten by him. He was really disappointed. Service was pretty friendly, but there's really no reason to go back for breakfast. It just didn't cut the mustard. I've heard that they do have good steak on their dinner menu, so I might try that.... I don't know. It just wasn't inspiring at all... and I'll go to Outback if I want good steak in Fremont.
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We had eaten here once before, several months ago (before I discovered Yelp) and been impressed with the food, so when we were in the area today and hungry for lunch, we headed there. The place itself looks a bit old, sort of neighborhood diner-ish. After we sat down, I remembered they'd had "specials" listed on a chalkboard and craned my neck around to find it. There it was and the "specials" were decidedly not neighborhood diner-ish. There were about 10 listed and I wish I remembered them all:
Filet Mignon and Lobster,
New York Steak and Lobster,
Lamb Shanks,
Seafood Saute,
and several others that you'd expect to find in a much fancier (and more expensive) restaurant.
The regular menu had an extensive selection and I had a hard time trying to decide. My husband opted for the lamb shanks. I tried to do something at least slightly healthy and had liver (lots of vitamins, iron and other minerals). I was astounded when I tasted mine. It was by far the best liver I've ever had. I don't know what was so different, but the liver was so mild and sweet that it was a joy to eat. The mashed potatoes were good and even the gravy was decent. Hubby's lamb was excellent and he commented on the mixed vegetables that were cooked just right instead of being mushy. We swapped tastes of the meats and he was as impressed as I was. The service was prompt and we got our check within moments after we we asked for it.
One star off because the waiter forgot to have my gravy served on the side, although he quickly offered to correct that.
I would deduct one star for the lack of ambiance, but their prices are so good that I'd have to put one star back, so it's a wash.
This place could be one of those "finds" that depends on who is cooking that day. I sort of wish we could have tried a little of everything on the "specials" menu because I have a feeling they were all as good as what we had. However, my stomach can only stretch so far...
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Nice place. Decent food large servings. I had the biscuits and gravy. The gravy was good the biscuits were just ok. This is a small restaurant and from the look of it it has several regulars here.I will go back.I think that the owner of this place is related to the owners of Dino's (a few miles north on Fremont Blvd),and Baldie's(Union City).
Friendly little diner that truckers would stop at or family oriented restaurant for the little kiddies? I don't think truckers would stop here because it's nowhere near the freeway and there's no parking anywhere for trucks. Guess I'll have to settle with family oriented restaurant for the little kiddies. Nope. The food was worse than eating MREs (Meals Ready to Eat, packaged food for when we're in the field).
I went in with a party of 6, and they got 5 of our orders wrong. First, came the Chicken Steak with Country gravy, which was actually beef w/country gravy (we had 2 orders of that). Third, came the eggs that were over medium but came scrambled. Fourth, were the hash browns that were supposed to be potatoes. Finally, a hamburger steak that came CHARRED to a piece of charcoal (felt like I was eating that). I could not believe that they got 5 of our orders wrong. There was no way they could have, because the waitress took each order separately. NOTHING tasted remotely good, either. Out of the 6 of us, not 1 of us cleaned off our plates (we're Marines, we'll finish food like it's our last meal). The whole meal totaled $69 and change. We were not happy leaving that place as we were unsatisfied and paid for a shitty meal. The only reason this place gets a second star was because the staff was friendly and gave free refills for coffee and water. This is one place I'm definitely avoiding for as long as it's around.
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You walk in and feel like you just went through a time warp. I guess that was a corny thing to say but it sure felt like an old-old diner, which I guess makes the place a bit charismatic. The greeting was instant and our booth was bouncy. I ordered the Chef's omelet: ground beef, spinach, onions, and mushrooms; and the french toast. The omelet is way hefty, made with about four eggs or something, and tons of everything else. The waitress said I was going to have trouble eating my whole meal, but I totally finished it. My sick friend ate a few bites of what I had rationed and separated for her, but that was it; the rest was all me. There is a huge gold fish behind the counter and found that it was a place to study, too. I saw a kid studying the same Biology book I read in high school sophomore year. The young kids that come here don't like my loud laugh, but I guess we don't have to care about that. Overall, the buser was great in his high-pitched voice. Water every seven minutes which is how I like it. Friend got a burger and the other got creme of corn: no complaints! Downtown Fremont has a lot more character with this place sitting at the corner of Grimmer and Fremont. -Matt
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The food is too too greasy even for American
went there once many, many yrs ago. didn't care for it. won't be back.
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