J & M Cafe

Gary:   Man, I got up this morning to the sound of my cell phone text messaging beep going off starting at 7:10AM. I am like, “Who the hell is up this early that needs to talk to me?” So for about an hour I tried to ignore it, but to no avail. Finally I had to see who this was... Guess who? You’re right, it was my darling partner-in-crime, Miss Hope, who was up and raring to go and you know what the text message was? The frigging weather report and she is telling me how shitty it was going to be for the ride today. So as I am starting to get ready to actually be there on time Hope reminds me (another text and she used to hate texts) that it is Mother's Day and to call my mom. So instead of procrastinating, I just made the call, wished my 83-year old mother a Happy Mothers Day and then started to get ready. I did text Hope back letting her know that I would be delayed due to the amount of communications I had to do this morning and her reply was ‘yes dear’. Now our way of saying that to each other is far from endearing. It is actually our way of being sarcastic to one another. It’s like ‘whatever’... Anyway, with that out of the way I finally made it to the garage. The weather report was correct though and it was again, overcast and drizzling. Hope calls it a conspiracy..

Hope:   After a trip out of town and an incredibly busy week, I was soooo ready to get out on the bike. The temperatures this week were on the warm side, and what should have continued into the week took a nose dive and lost 20 degrees somewhere in the transition. Crap! Again with the damn weather conspiracy!! Gary went on to tell me about how in the 60s, there was actually talk that the Russians were controlling our weather patterns. Of course, that makes no sense whatsoever, since Russia has MUCH worse weather than ours. You would think that if they could pull off a stunt like weather control, they would start in their own country and turn Siberia into a summer resort! Or maybe Gary consumed too much of that Russian vodka back in the day…lol…

Surprisingly, the one who would have forgot to call and wish his mother a Happy Mother’s Day arrived on time. And for the record, “yes dear” is just another way of saying, “fuck you!”

Gary:   When I arrived in Fillmore, Hope was already out the door but amazed that I was on time. Her bike being ready, we take off. Now, I just rode 45 minutes to get there and didn’t even get a chance to pee and I needed gas so we didn’t get too far that one part of me is about to overflow and the other part is about to run out; strange dilemma.  Hope had already had some places picked out and as usual I just let it go. The funny part is she changed her own mind. I will let her tell you about the ride there and what changed her mind...

Hope:   Nonetheless, we decided to ‘pick a place’ and headed out to enjoy the day. My first thought was to check out the Cajun Kitchen Café, but after riding a few miles down the 126 in what turned out to be a sunny day in the mid 60s, Gary decided he had to stop in Saticoy. It was at that point that we decided to head all the way to Oak View to the J & M Café. Unfortunately, we were both already hungry, so we had to fight the urge to stop at Allison’s Café for a cinnamon roll and coffee. We headed to Ventura by way of Foothill Boulevard, took a quick left at Seward, a right on Main Street, and another right into the Boulevard and followed that into Oak View.

Gary:   This restaurant is a pretty discrete joint. If you didn’t pay attention you would drive right past it. I would anyway because I never know where the hell I am going. We walk in and we sat at our favorite spot, the counter. Here we are always able to get a good vantage point of the action in the place. The service was not exactly what I would say exceptional but there were only a couple of waitresses working so they were pretty busy. Once we got our coffee/tea, we settled down a bit.

Hope:   Gary tells no lies…this is a non-descript place and if you didn’t know it was there, you’d miss it. We walked in and although there were a few people waiting to be seated, the counter offered 2 empty seats begging to be occupied. Despite the place appearing pretty full with customers, I could only count 3 people working in the dining room, so it looked like they were a bit short-staffed. And this was Mother’s Day!! We also appeared to be invisible, as there was no one to greet us, ask us if we wanted coffee, or provide us with place settings or menus.

We finally let the waitress know we’d like one coffee and one tea and while studying the menu, I picked up part of Friday’s local newspaper and low and behold, Sharon, our waitress at the Vagabond Coffee Shop is featured on the front page in an article about raising the retirement age.  It seems that many of the Vagabond’s waitresses are well, seasoned. Sharon is 68 years young, Yvonne is 71, and there’s another who will be 85 in September! But I digress…

With coffee and tea served, I headed to the closest booth to grab some silverware. The waitress returned after a little while and with my stomach rumbling, I ordered the chicken-fried steak with scrambled eggs, and homefries. And again the waiting continues…

Breakfast was served about 15 minutes later and well, it was o.k. The service improved somewhat but overall, everything was just o.k. In fact, I’d call this place the O.K. Café.  The chicken-fried steak was formed into a perfect patty and probably previously (store-bought) frozen, the scrambled eggs were not fluffy, but rather flat and well done; the homefries were good but nothing to write home about.  Let’s face it—one cannot live on homefries alone!

Gary:   My food was OK. I ordered pork chops and eggs (over easy of course), with sourdough toast and home fried potatoes. The eggs were cooked exactly right, the pork chops were good but a little dry which can make them tough and the potatoes were OK. The coffee was OK as was the service, the look of the place, the parking and the jam which was of the packaged sort. So, to tell you the truth, it is hard to write anything bad or good. It was just OK. Would I go back again? Yes, because it wasn’t bad. But with so many other great places around I would have to have a really good reason. I will let Hope tell you about dessert.

Hope:   Truth be told, the ride was the better part of the morning and luckily, we still had to get back home.  And since we were already talking about Sharon and the Vagabond Coffee House, we decided to head there for some homemade berry cobbler for dessert. How sick is that????????????????? And to make matters worse, after we finished the berry cobbler, Gary decided to order a double-order of their apple cobbler. Now THAT’S sick, doncha’ think??

J & M Café (The O.K. Café)

490 Ventura Avenue
Oak View, CA 93022-9615
(805) 649-4712