Why Pitts Stop is One of Sacramento’s Best Diners | Eater SF

"Located on a wickedly busy corner next to a tire shop in South Sacramento, this simple wooden diner—Pitts Stop, informally known as “the Pitts”—has been a true neighborhood institution since Denise Shelton opened it on October 15, 1979. As the only restaurant within a half-mile in an area considered a food desert (the nearest other options are a taco truck and a tamaleria), it functions as a respite where food is affordable and familiar. Walking in, I face a tiled coffee counter and Shelton working the line under the warm kitchen glow; she’s a swift, eternally youthful one-woman kitchen army who rises at dawn and, for 40 years, has churned out scratch-made biscuits (five dozen in the blink of an eye), chicken-fried steak, crispy hash browns, grits and eggs, tall stacks of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, omelettes, hamburgers, and a menu-listed SOS (“a hamburger patty with cream gravy on toast”). On the right weekends she makes a chile verde plate—Spanish rice, pinto beans, eggs, and tortillas—whose slow-roasted pork is shredded and soaked in a spiky, army-green braising sauce; Shelton learned those Mexican specials from Rosario, and the dish really ought to be listed as Rosario’s Chile Verde. The spot used to be practically signless and indistinct (some mistook it for the tire shop), but employee Kathryn Goings helped modernize things with an Instagram account, a business sign, and a Franklin Boulevard Business Association banner. The counter is a crossroads of community—what Shelton calls the “United Nations of South Sacramento”—where neighbors of many backgrounds share food and company, sometimes refilling their own coffee when Shelton is running the line alone. I’ve watched Shelton soldier back after two knee surgeries when a temporary cook couldn’t handle the demands, which only underscores how much of Pitts Stop’s soul she embodies and how vital the diner remains to its neighborhood." - Illyanna Maisonet