Fullerton’s Soco District, Roscoe’s Famous Deli
September 24, 2007 evening.
Rating: ok
At 6 PM I had to take my son to Fullerton Junior College for an evening class that lasted three and a half to four hours. To save gas cost, I decided to stay close to the campus. A very short distance from FJC is downtown Fullerton. Last week I had dinner at an Irish pub. This evening I decided to pick another part of the city to explore. This is an old town and the old buildings have been renovated into a nice collection of restaurants and shops.
This evening I tried the Soco District (http://www.thesocodistrict.com/). I did not want noise but a quiet place to sit and read. From my experience, this is not that easy to find in this downtown area. It seems that every restaurant has a loud bar and lots of patrons. I decided upon Roscoe’s Famous Deli at 116 W. Commonwealth, Fullerton, California 92832 and phone 714.879-2153. The front of this establishment is a bar with what looked like marble top and chairs. I do not remember counting how many TV sets were in this area but I did see that one TV was showing a base ball game. I think two TV sets in the front dinning area. Next walking toward the rear was a small deli.
Further back are the rest rooms. Going out the back door is another outside bar with a large flat screen TV. Sitting at the bar offers an easy view of the TV. I chose to sit at a table further back away from the bar in this outside area. The weather was quite good with a hint of a cool breeze that only seldom came upon me. I had wished I brought my sweater but actually I did not need one for the whole length of the meal.
Not knowing that I only had to sit at a table and I would be served, I ordered at the deli counter. They only offer sandwiches with one side choice of potato salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw, pasta salad, fruit, chili or soup. I chose potato salad with my tuna sandwich. The sandwich cost $7.95 and my ice tea must have cost $3 because the bill came to $11, even. The most expensive sandwich is the Big Mickey for $10.95 (turkey, ham, roast beef, cheddar, Swiss, lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, mustard on a roll). I was warned that all the sandwiches were huge. My sandwich was large enough to share. My side choice was potato salad and I could not finish it. I find many places put too much vinegar into that salad but here; the flavor was nice and mild. The front bar and rear bar area was not heavily populated with patrons, so the TV audio was clearly understood. I wanted to read the newspaper but got hooked watching the Saints play Tennessee and the real cute women bar tender. In total the experience was nice. The menu for me was nothing special. The food was good. The real attraction for me was the outside dinning, watching a football game, and no hassles, no loud obnoxious patrons, quite relaxing.