Clay's Restaurant

California Avenue IHOP becomes independent eatery

November 28th 2008, IHOP in Bakersfield became Clay's Restaurant.  We've been going to that IHOP since 2000 but we don't always have the money to be regulars.  We only go once in awhile.  But we actually haven't been there at all since they changed their name to Clay's.

Well this morning Chip wanted to go out for breakfast and the place that he chose was closed for some strange reason.  So he said well let's go to Denny's.  I said that's too far.  He said where do you want to go and I said "well we haven't been to Clay's yet" so that's where we went.

We get there and are seated right away.  There was a person we knew who was leaving so Chip wanted to talk to him before we sat down.  Our host had our menu's sitting open on the table waiting for us which I thought was very nice.

So we order and our food comes, I ordered the #6 2 eggs, 3 bacon, 3 sausage, hash browns and pancakes.  Chip ordered chicken fried steak with gravy, eggs, hash browns and toast.

I can't speak for him but he didn't complain about his food.  My food was pretty good.  The sausage was different though, it wasn't over cooked and wrinkly, it was a nice light shade of brown and it was smooth.  The bacon was also very flat and smooth and it tasted good.  The pancakes were smaller but I guess they can't sell pancakes that look exactly like IHOP's so they just made them smaller.  The hash browns weren't crispy which is IHOP's signature hash browns but that was fine.  It was still good.  Normally scrambled eggs are 1 solid color but mine weren't mixed completely so you could see the yellow and white.  That's not a bad thing, the eggs were good but it was just different.

Our waitress was Donna and she was a very nice woman.  We asked her if the business has suffered since they changed their name to Clay's and she said that there aren't as many customers as when they were IHOP but the customers are coming back.  I can say that I would definitely come back because the food was very good.

Clay's Restaurant is located at 1530 California Ave. in Bakesfield, CA.  There are also other Clay's, I just know about this one and the one over by Valley Plaza on Ming.  I would recommend Clay's and I give them 5 stars.