Oklahoma City Restaurants

Cesar’s Grill is located at 5500 NW 10th St in Oklahoma City (map).

Being a shady adventurist has its challenges. I mean, think of it this way – you’ve got one hour for lunch, your only break from a crazy day of work, and you are leaving the fate of your precious lunch time in the hands of an inexperienced griddle chef and a waitress that, more often than not, has a progressive form of emphysema from her two pack a day habit. Why do it, you ask? Well, simply put, it’s exciting! Even when you have a less-than-stellar experience at one of these joints, you typically walk away with a good story, more money left in your pocket than McWhataKing’s “value meal” would have left you with, and the chance to mingle with some of Oklahoma City’s more dynamic personalities.

Cesar’s Grill is no exception to this rule. It is border-line shady. In fact, my lunch companion and I had a good healthy debate about the ultimate shadiness of this particular eatery.

A few key shady factors:

1. Surrounded by wheel and tire shops (I am in no way saying these have a dishonest practice, but you have to wonder why they always seem to have that hubcap you were missing on special. Maybe they have all those left socks I’m missing in back too. Never thought to ask! The one down the road from Cesar’s does have those hard-to-find Volkswagen sized tires for only $20!! What a bargain!).
2. It is located down the street from the Red Dog Cafe. Pretty sure bad things go down here. It looks like the bar in that Quentin Tarantino film, Dusk Till Dawn. I’m not a frequenter of these places so I can’t give you specific details. Besides Red Dog, there are at least 3 additional sleazy men’s clubs in the immediate area (I refuse to call them Gentlemen’s clubs).
3. Lots of vagabonds wandering around this side of town. It’s not far off Reno, so transients often find this particular stretch of road a good place to take a mid-day stroll. It could very possibly just be the bouncers from Red Dog Cafe killing time before the Happy Hour action starts. Who knows?
4. It seems like the apartment complexes over here seem to always have cops, and even a random shooting or two every quarter or so.

And the arguments against the shady rating:

1. It’s not an overly dangerous part of town. Aside from what happens here in the late evening hours, I think if you stay out of Red Dog Cafe, and don’t go swapping meth pipes in the apartment complexes, you are pretty safe to be around here, even in evening hours.
2. The clientèle here are pretty un-shady. There is usually a table of Senior Adults enjoying a laid back lunch while socializing (or I guess they could be planning their excursion into the Red Dog, in which case my assumption could be way off).
3. The inside of this place is not shady at all. In fact, it has that feel of an old BBQ restaurant, or cheap budget steakhouse. Wood paneling, old western pictures, Coca-Cola memorabilia, and a crane machine to try and win a stuffed animal after lunch.

I’ve been so torn with its classification that I even went here twice in the same week to try and figure it out. I may need reader assistance in properly categorizing this place. Let me describe some of the food offerings to give you proper preparation before you try this place for yourselves.

First off, they serve breakfast all day. Bonus! And its pretty good! The Cesar Omelette throws together a lot of what’s in the kitchen (in their words) to make a spicy and robust meal. Again, breakfast is always a safe option as it’s hard to mess it up. The burgers, however, are a different story. I asked our waitress what she thought and she said, “oh, they are awesome!” She was a young and energetic sort, literally running between tables and the kitchen to try and give everyone quick service. She didn’t look, or smell, like the heavy smoker type that I’m used to in these types of places. That, paired with her age, (the older you get the more taste buds you lose) made me think her opinion could be valid. Wrong. Frozen patty. Not 100% sure it was even all beef. I was unable to finish it.

They do have a daily special, which on one occasion looked really good. They had a baked chicken dish with fried okra and some type of green vegetable. It looked and smelled awesome, and everyone in the place but us had ordered it (and cleaned their plates). It may be that the daily special is the way to go every day. The second time I went, though, the special was a roast beef dish, and the quality of the burger made me a bit squeamish so I went with the breakfast. My fellow shady adventurer tried the $3.99 chicken fried steak. I told him not to, but the price sucked him in. No amount of intervening was successful in averting his curiosity. I even offered to pay for something else myself, but he wouldn’t listen. Of course it was a frozen, processed patty, but he finished it off. There is something about gravy (even if it does come from a mix) that can really make processed meat edible by masking the flavor.

Overall, Cesar’s isn’t bad. Great prices, great service, decent food offerings. As long as you treat these places like they should be treated, as quick and cheap lunch adventures, you will set them up for the way they are meant to be enjoyed. If you are taking the family out at night, I would stick to places like Iron Starr, El Pollo Chullo, Sophabella’s, and a number of other non-shady eateries listed on our site. And stick to the places like Cheevers, Deep Fork, Red Prime, and La Baguette for those nicer dinners. No hate mail please if you go into my shadier suggestions with the wrong expectations.

Other articles you might like:

• Chipotle Mexican Grill: a guide for Oklahoma City
• Taqueria Sanchez: mobile Shady Restaurant of the Month
• 50’s Cafe: Shady Restaurant of the Month
• Brown Suga Cafe: soul food in northwest Oklahoma City
• The Saturn Grill offers creativity well done.

This article was posted by Andrew Littleton on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008. It is filed in Diner, Northwest OKC, Shady places. Please leave your comments below (we'd love to hear from you), or trackback from your own site.

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