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    Mels Diner

    5.0 (48 reviews)
    Closed 10:30 am - 3:00 pm
    Updated a few days ago

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    Keri O.

    YeeeeeeHaWWW! Found a new place to eat with Semi Truck Parking next door on Wed&Thurs but gonna be a tight fit Fri-Sun in either lot. The staff is an absolute trip. I had fun meeting them. The Burger was flavorful , fresh cut fries, great milkshake with all kinds of flavors, Chicken Fried Chicken with white gravy, chunky mashed potatoes and fresh green beans that taste like they were right from a local garden........ Cha Ching. You gotta stop in.

    Burger salad
    Lindsay M.

    Love this place! The service is great! It's very nicely decorated and very cool with a bunch of vintage decor I love It. The food was really good I had the burger in a salad very tasty. Will be back!

    Say "hi" to Mel if you see her.
    Adele Q.

    Off the highway by 2 miles but well worth the detour. Large interior with tables, booths, and bar. Saw a couple of additional small rooms that would be perfect for meetings. Everyone we met was super friendly. Mel even came and visited with us. Not the big burley diner "Mel" I had envisioned, but a smiling, gregarious, blond haired woman! We really enjoyed visiting with her. I had their fried shrimp which was hands down the BEST fried shrimp I have had since moving to the DFW Metroplex area. The dish I had was drizzled with an Old Bay Seasoning and honey mixture. It was delicious. My husband had the chicken fried steak and is always looking for the best. He rated this one in his top 3 which means it was really good. Along with the entrees the sides, fresh cut french fries, lobster macaroni salad, jalapeño poppers, and cold slaw, were all delicious. I highly recommend you make the trip to Mel's Diner and try them out.

    If you are ANYWHERE close to Mingus, Texas (Stephenville, Abilene, Weatherford or Granbury) do yourself a favor and drive past the smokehouse restaurant and go to Mel's diner just down the street. It is amazing! Super fun, clean restaurant. They even played reruns of the Mel's Diner tv show. Husband had the seafood platter and I had the catfish/shrimp plate. All of it was amazing including the hand cut fries. The shrimp was so big I had to cut it with a knife. The catfish was the thickest I have ever seen. All of it was hand batter and as Mel herself said "cooked with real butter"!! Met Mel and her daughter, who waited on us. So nice! We tried to convince her to open a place in Granbury! 5 stars all around.

    Chicken Fried Steak
    Fabian G.

    Finally made it to Mel's Diner.. Greeted with smiles and a very nostalgic place. I ordered the chicken fried steak, fried okra, and Cajun french fries. Everything was amazing! Looking forward to going back and trying a burger.. Would Definitely Recommend!!

    Found three restaurants in the area with good ratings. So of course had to try them all. At Mel's got the fried shrimp. Not bad at all. The shrimp are huge and it is a lot of food. The service and the atmosphere are on point. Fun place to stop and grab a shake. Worth the stop.

    Fried catfish, shrimp, okra, & fries
    Michael J.

    Are you up for a short drive off the interstate to have the experience of your life? We made the trek to Mel's Diner in Mingus, Texas (816 S Mingus Blvd, Mingus, TX 76463) to give them a try. 100 mile round trip worth every mile. (From Hudson Oaks). Not Oarker County but they are our small town neighbors. I saw the homemade Maryland Crabcakes and my mouth immediately began to water. I traveled the East Coast and nobody did crab cakes better than Maryland. Just my luck ... they were out. They did have enough to whip up 3 small crab cake balls so I settled for those and a Greek salad. My only disappointment was the quantity. Never enough crab cake. My wife ordered the fried catfish, shrimp, okra, and fries. She had a tummy full of oil but she was happy. Let me tell you... best batter on the catfish I have tried in a long time. The owner is from Maryland and managed to find just the right mix of north and south batter. It was fantastic. My next trial is the Chesapeake Chicken. For our trip home we decided to splurge on calories (heck we had already eaten two days worth). My wife ordered the Reese's Peanut Butter milkshake. Folks it ain't what you think. No peanut butter cups blended in ice cream and milk here. Individual portions of chocolate and peanut butter carefully portioned and blended into the ice cream. My wife had to wrestle it away from me after letting me taste it. Trust me. It was that good! Now I couldn't let my wife show me up. I ordered a banana malt with just a tad bit of butterscotch blended in the mix. My favorite shake. We wallowed in our wonderful misery the whole 50 miles home. My wife is in blissful slumber as I write this. I'm wondering why I'm still awake. Don't miss out. They are only a few short minutes from the IH20. You will not regret the trek. The menu is awesome and the staff is unforgettable I've included a few of my favorite menu snippets. Their menu is on the website.

    Shrimp Salad with Italian yum

    Cannot say enough good things about Mel's. Hand dipped milkshakes with a variety of flavors. Try the shrimp salad anyway. So good. Burgers and some great variations of them. The service is top notch and friendly. We'll worth the few minutes to jump off I-20.

    Menu as of June 2024
    Taylor B.

    The service is top notch. The place has a ton of cool decor and plenty of character. The burgers and fries are great! Highly recommend. If you are needing somewhere to stop at off I-20 this is a good one!

    Fresh Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers and Pickle Fries
    Jason Z.

    This place was very delicious, we were around the area for a mini getaway and found this place was near us. We were very satisfied with the customer service, our waitress was very attentive and sweet. The appetizers were very good portions to begin our meal. And the burgers were very delicious. If you plan on coming here definitely try their shakes. We had the golden monkey shake and it was so good, we hope to be back soon.

    Milkshake menu...DELICIOUS!!!!!

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    2 years ago

    This place is our favorite! Everything is delicious and the owner and staff couldn't be kinder. Be sure to leave room for a malt milkshake!

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    4 years ago

    Great environment. Food was really good. We will be back. We had a Cheeseburger and Philly cheese steak.

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    New York Hill Restaurant - Charbroiled Chicken, steamed veggies and sweet potato fries

    New York Hill Restaurant

    (233 reviews)

    $$

    Back to this place after last review 9 months ago. Still ridiculous size chicken fried steak…read morefingers. Comes with salad, 2 sides (M potatoes, okra) and roll. I'm always expected to be let down because it is soooo good every time coke here. Everything is still great. Talked my friend into meeting here and he was blown away with how great it was. I forgot to take a picture this time. My friend is not a leftover person, but he took his leftover steak fingers with him and also ordered slice of buttermilk pie to go. Our waitress was a sweetheart. I forgot her name, believe short young lady with black hair. Forgive me for not remembering her name, but she was wonderful and very helpful for any questions my friend had. Did notice someone ordered I believe cheese curds and did not know they had these. I will try to remember this next time I'm here. I will always update this place every-time I come here. Thanks for the greasy food.

    I travel to Abilene somewhat often for business, in and out same day. I'm usually coming through…read morethe area of this restaurant in the morning, and back by again around lunchtime. And I usually stop at the place across the highway. Today I decided to check out New York Hill and I was glad I did. The ambience is like being in a house that had its living room converted to a dining room- which it may very well have been. I'm not sure. Regardless, there are booths and tables, and a nice view to the north. All good. I was greeted by a nice young lady who took my drink order (coffee) and brought a menu. I liked they served the coffee in a thermal mug as it stayed hot! The menu was extensive, plate lunches, burgers, sandwiches, salads... a bit of everything. The dishes were typical of what we call "home cooking" around these parts. I ordered the Texas Sizzler- a chop steak with onions and jalapeños, smothered in melted cheese. It was quite delicious, and since we just had our first cold snap for the fall, it really hit the spot as a dish that will warm you up. The salad that came with the meal was very good, and had a nice chunky blue cheese dressing. Crinkle cut sweet potato's fries were good, as was the pinto beans. There are lots of other sides to choose from. Overall, everything was hot, fresh and delicious. Service was friendly and they. Checked on me often. Bottom line is I will be back to try some of their other offerings.

    Mary's Cafe - CFS

    Mary's Cafe

    (496 reviews)

    $$

    The food was delicious I had the chicken gizzards and my husband had the chicken fried steak…read more.. The service was amazing .... And the ambiance was amazing as well even though it was raining outside it was very pleasant inside.....

    This place is a Texas institution, located in a small town west of Fort Worth about an hour, it is…read moreoff the beaten path a little bit but is always full of hungry patrons. I have heard about this place for years and I was excited about my first real opportunity to eat there. The menu has all your southern comfort food staples but is famously known for their chicken fried steaks. And since I love a good chicken fried steak, that's exactly what I ordered. First off, you get to choose whether you want a small, medium, or large size. Let me preface this with, "I eat a lot", but knowing this place is famous for their portions, I ordered the small. It was plenty enough for me. The medium comes with 2 chicken fried steaks, and the large with 3. Unless you're sharing with someone, I'm not really sure who is actually eating that. Anyhow, my favorite part about this chicken fried steak is that the breading stays on the cut of beef. It doesn't fall off like it does when you cut it up like almost every other place serves it. I hear that's because they cook it on a flat iron skillet instead of deep frying it. I did not verify that claim, but nonetheless it was probably my favorite CFS eating experience because the thin breading stuck to the beef the entire time. It was well flavored with the gravy served on the side so you could add as much/little as you wanted... also a nice touch. I ordered fries and pinto beans for my sides. The fries are fresh cut potatoes and fried to perfection served in a heaping pile on the side of your plate. Pinto beans were tender and had the perfect amount of saltiness on them. Waitstaff is flying around this place taking care of every table with a smile. This place is great!

    Mae's Meat Market - Large chicken fried steak, gravy, cole slaw and twice baked tater casserole.

    Mae's Meat Market

    (120 reviews)

    $$

    DELICIOUS! I actually heard about this place from a Reddit post about places to stop on a road trip…read moreacross Texas and I'm so glad I listened! It's home cooked food, calories-not-monitored, but worth every single bite. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but I knew it was going to be good when we saw the parking lot was overflowing into the grass. Luckily there was still an open table inside and we were welcomed by the sweetest staff and our waitress was just as wonderful. So many things looked good on the menu, but I couldn't resist ending this road trip with another taste of chicken fried steak to compare to Mary's (and they can definitely compete because it was AWESOME)! We also tried the chicken fried chicken (delicious), sweet potato casserole (amazing), Mae's potato casserole (tasty), cheese sticks (good), and the hamburger and fries which was obviously delicious enough that my picky daughter almost finished it - which says a LOT! We were very glad that we'd ordered the "smaller portions" for lunch because it meant we could grab a few of the desserts to go to snack on for our final leg of the road trip and keep enjoying at home. We tried the toffee cake (incredible), peanut butter cake (sinfully good), and the coconut pie (very light and creamy)! We also snagged some items to take home with us from their coolers and I can 100% recommend their pork tamales and summer sausage. If you get the chance to stop here, you won't regret it at all! Delicious, great service, and good portions!

    I love the maverick burger but one of my favorite things is the grilled chicken salad !!! Delicious…read more! They make the chicken soooo good. Always friendly here and never had a bad meal ! Love them

    3B Beers, Brats & Burgers

    3B Beers, Brats & Burgers

    (56 reviews)

    By far one of the best burgers we've had in awhile. Now I don't wanna set the bar too high, because…read morethan you'll be disappointed. So imagine a flavorful, hearty home grilled burger...but you don't have to cook it. We feel as if we can't have burgers for some time because we'll be comparing for awhile. The beer was awesome too! My husband doesn't like stouts, but their fossil fire cocoa stout he LOVED! A little too sweet for my liking. But the hoppy was great! (I'm an ipa fan)The vibe can feel a little overwhelming for a first time customer, but it reallly feels like your friends backyard. Lots of sitting and tons of games. The customer service was very friendly and helpful! Wish we lived here, because this would be our go too spot. Tips: *little crowd on a Friday night around 7 (granted it was the day after Christmas) * we parked on the side street, to order food go to the building on the left and then wait for your buzzer to go off for the food. * the flight was great! * don't do the sauerkraut if you don't like spicy

    Not sure why we haven't heard about this place before but it was great! It was a small challenge to…read morefigure out how to get to where we needed to be to order our food but we just followed a few people that looked like they knew what was going on! LOL! We ordered our food and they lady taking our order gave us the chips and salsa at the counter. We took a buzzer and they let us know where we could pick up our order when it was ready. It was a beautiful day so we opted to sit outside and enjoy the patio while waiting for our food. It only took about 10-15 minutes and we received our order. Everything was hot and fresh and totally delicious! We definitely can't wait to go back!

    Mels Diner - diners - Updated May 2026

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