Breakfast Club Diner California: Family Restaurant with a Twist

Perry Roumbos believes his (BC/DC) is the only restaurant in Oceanside serving pancakes with nutella and strawberries.

The dish isn't on the printed menu but often listed on the “specials” blackboard.

BC/DC, open for breakfast and lunch at 228 N. Coast Highway (corner of Pier View Way) provides a varied menu from the aforementioned pancakes with nutella (a spread made from hazelnuts) to “Grecian” and “Oriental Chicken” salads.

The décor is pure 1980s, complete with vinyl records and surfboards.

BC/DC celebrated its first anniversary Jan. 15 in the location once occupied by the Longboarder restaurant, since moved a couple of blocks away.

Roumbos says about half of new restaurants don't survive that first year.

He came to the restaurant business both directly and roundabout: Directly because his dad owned fast-food establishment and roundabout because Roumbos' college degree is in architecture, and he worked professionally as an architect.

But he'd begun helping in his father's restaurant at the age of 12.

His paycheck was “whatever I found on the ground in the parking lot – it taught us the value of money,” he said.

Roumbos' parents were Greek immigrants. His father, called Bill, operated two Golden Ox restaurants in the Los Angeles area, one in Montebello and one in El Monte and followed his motto of “your customers should be treated better than your family.”

“To this day, I still use the same philosophy,” Roumbos said.

Even though the economy is bad, he said, he tries to serve the best quality at an affordable price. “We're not just food providers; we're experience-makers,” Roumbos said. “You come in as a customer and leave as a friend.”

Roumbos started his own restaurant career with a Flappy Jacks restaurant, still operated by his sister in Glendora.

He liked coming to Oceanside to surf on the weekends, so he jumped at the chance to open a place here when the operators of the venerable Flying Bridge at the north end of the highway asked him to operate a diner in the coffee-shop portion of their restaurant.

BC/DC stayed there eight months before the opportunity to pick up the downtown location presented itself.

“I love Oceanside,” he said. “I love what it has become.”

“The thing about ,” he added, “is that it is an eclectic quilt.  It doesn;t matter what business – we are all working for the same good, to bring people here, to make them happy, to make them want to come back.”

With its beautiful civic center, the beaches ”and the food,” Ruombos said. “It's becoming a great destination. I'm really excited to be a part of it.”

And he said he doesn't look at the other restaurants downtown as competitors, but as neighbors, patronizing them himself by having lunch at the or dinner at , even eating breakfast at across the street.

“That's the kind of feeling” Roumbos said he wants to promote.

And he wants to give to the community, donating to schools, local theaters and art galleries such as the nearby .

He hopes his restaurant “will become another landmark” in downtown Oceanside.

And, in the meantime, he said, “we're having a lot of fun.” 

Article and photos by Lola Sherman. Additional photos provided by Breakfast Club Diner California.