In Lemmon Valley, everyone knows about Hometown Café. The familiar restaurant offers cozy diner vibes with American fare for breakfast and lunch and house-made desserts.
If you’re craving something filling, the corner restaurant serves food worth the drive to Lemmon Valley and with the old-school Americana features you love to see in a hometown diner: red checked tablecloths, a counter-serve bar top and wood-paneled dividers in between booths.
The overall vibe feels like home. Cute but functional. The menu is fairly simple but long, with stacks of blueberry hot cakes, apple cinnamon French toast, corned beef and eggs and a selection of benedicts. And that’s just for breakfast.
Nothing is overdone or over-produced. There aren’t a bunch of fancy ingredients or pretty garnishes. It’s just good, straightforward grub in portion sizes that won’t leave you hungry.
The breakfast burritos here rival the best in town. Choose your favorite meat (sausage, bacon, ham, carne asada or chorizo) to mix with the melty goodness of Jack and cheddar cheeses and salsa, all crammed into a large tortilla. The breakfast burrito is then topped with red sauce and more cheese and served with hash browns or country potatoes. The overall impact is about as big as the burrito, which would be hard to eat in one sitting.
Another favorite menu item is the chicken-fried steak, a hearty cutlet fried golden brown served with all your breakfast favorites.
From omelets to benedicts, huevos con chorizo to Belgian waffles, you could come back again and again and never repeat your order—until you find a favorite, that is.
Another standout menu item—and one of the most ordered—is the pancake sandwich. This wholesome breakfast meal combines savory and sweet into one dish with two buttermilk pancakes instead of bread and stuffed with eggs any style and either bacon or sausage.
Open from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. daily, many also come into Hometown Café for lunch, which offers a menu almost as robust as the breakfast one with a slew of classic, filling meals and an emphasis on comfort food. Choices include chopped sirloin steak, spaghetti with meatballs, fish and chips or fried shrimp.
Breakfast is served all day, so you don’t have to forgo eggs and bacon at noon if that’s what you’re craving.
In addition to a senior menu and kids menu, there’s a low-calorie, low-carb lunch special featuring grilled chicken breast or a burger patty served with cottage cheese, fresh fruit, sliced tomatoes and a hard-boiled egg.
Hometown Café is a staple for many reasons, and it’s often busy, filled with locals and visitors alike. While those who know about Hometown keep returning for its conventional approach to breakfast, others passing through Reno will be drawn in by the small-town charm of the place on the outskirts of a growing city.
And for those of us just discovering it now, we have a place away from it all to visit when we’re feeling a bit homesick.
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Hometown Cafe is at 9251 Lemmon Dr. and is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. Phone: (775) 972-5354.
